


Do You Know The Echo Myth?

by spinsters_grave



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (but definitely compliant with S1 or S2), Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Gore, Body Modification (tattoos), Gotta fight in that good ol galra arena, Greek mythology interspaced with bible quotes, M/M, Minor Character Death, Vomiting, not compliant with s3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-16
Updated: 2017-08-16
Packaged: 2018-12-16 04:14:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11821023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spinsters_grave/pseuds/spinsters_grave
Summary: Written for the Sheith Big Bang event!Keith and Shiro share their stories. It’s what they do; it’s how they calm each other down during the calamity of war. Because war is hell but so are they, right?When they’re taken by The Enemy and forced to fight, Shiro desperately clings to Keith’s stories to keep himself sane and safe and somewhat complete. It's a desolate existence, it really is, lonely, bare, and empty, filled with death and the dying, and there's nothing for them but each other and their stories.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> One big shout-out to @keith-and-shiro-were-dating for being the artist for this fic!!

“Do you know the echo myth?”

 

Shiro looked up from his star plan and tried to find the source of the noise for a moment, disoriented. “What?”

 

“Do you know the echo myth,” Keith repeated.

 

Shiro blinked. “Guess not.”

 

Keith shrugged one shoulder. “Do you want me to tell you?”

 

Shiro looked down at his star plan again, filled with white dots and unsteady lines. His brain already hurt just thinking about diving back into it for another minute, another hour. “Sure.”

 

Keith leaned back in his chair. They were the only two left in the bridge, so they drifted towards each other. 

 

“It’s a Greek myth,” he began. “Zeus was having an affair on his wife, Hera. I don’t remember who with, and it’s not important. The important thing is that Zeus was having an affair.

 

“His wife suspected. She was the goddess of marriage, and her own was falling apart. Again. So she was mad. So she went down to the Greek mainland in search of her husband, but Zeus got back before Hera found anything out.

 

“Echo was a cloud nymph. She loved to talk, and she would talk to anyone and anything she could. Zeus singled her out the next morning, as he was flying down from Mount Olympus to meet with his mistress. He told her to distract Hera by any means necessary.

 

“So when Hera herself flew down from Mount Olympus to check on Zeus, Echo intercepted her and began to talk about the most trivial things. Who had rained, what colors they had turned last night in the sunset. Cloud nymph things. She talked for so long that when Zeus came back to Mount Olympus, Hera was still talking to Echo.

 

“It went on like that for a while. Zeus would go coddle his mistress and Echo would distract Hera. But then Zeus’s mistress had a baby, and it was impossible to disguise the fact that the kid was a demigod. Hera was enraged, and Echo was there, having distracted her so Zeus could go and shit on their marriage even more.

 

“So Hera cursed Echo so that she could only repeat back words spoken to her. She could never express an original thought again, only parody someone else.”

 

Keith was silent for a moment. “And that’s why we have echoes. Moral of the story, don’t distract a vengeful goddess.”

 

“Okay, but she was stuck between a rock and a hard place,” Shiro said. It didn’t seem fair, not at all. “Zeus was the king god, right? If Echo hadn’t obeyed him, she would have been punished. And when Hera found out, which of course she would, she was punished anyway. There’s no way out of it for her.”

 

Keith shrugged and crossed his arms. “I guess the cloud nymph sitting across from Echo was glad that Echo’s fate wasn’t her own. And besides, she was singled out for being extremely talkative.”

 

“But it’s not fair,” Shiro argued.

 

“I don’t control the gods,” Keith said. “That would kinda defeat the purpose.”

 

Shiro sighed and scrubbed his hand through his hair. “It doesn’t seem right. It’s not fair for her.”

 

Keith’s face crumbled into a somewhat pitying gaze. “I see how you feel, but that doesn’t change the story. Or the moral—don’t be overly talkative.”

 

Shiro snorted. “Yeah, try telling Lance that and see how he takes it.”

 

Keith smirked. “Maybe I will.”

 

* * *

 

“Remember the Echo myth?” Shiro asked Keith’s pod. “You should have kept your mouth shut. Then they wouldn’t have found you. And they wouldn't have shot you.”

 

“You what,” Lance said. “The hell’s the echo myth?”

 

_ Try telling Lance that.  _ Shiro placed a hand on Keith’s pod. “Never mind,” he told Lance. “Not important.”

 

Lance pouted. “Now I really want to know.” (They were the only two left in the pod room. Shiro wanted to stay with Keith. Lance wanted to outlast Keith, in every and all situations.) 

 

Shiro struggled to control his features. Neutral, he told himself, think neutral thoughts. Switzerland. Plain bagels. “Just a myth about why echoes exist,” he said.

 

“Like, sound waves bouncing off cavern walls and rushing back towards you kind of myth?”

 

“No,” Shiro said, “the kind of myth with gods and heroes.”

 

“Ah,” Lance said, definitely confused, and then neither of them said anything for a while.

 

Shiro thought about Greek mythology. He knew the basics—twelve gods, Underworld, whatever. Hercules (Heracles?) and the Trojan war. 

 

Keith was into those Percy Jackson books, though. At least, he used to be. He knew all the little stories, about echoes and how demigods came to be and all that. He’d poured himself into learning the myths, the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ stories that people long dead came up with to describe thunder and stars in the sky. 

 

He was like that. He had the drive to discover, to learn more about the world around him. It was one of the things Shiro liked about him.

 

“So,” Lance said, “did Coran tell you when Mullet’s going to wake up? I was thinking of catching some Z’s, if you know what I mean.”

 

Shiro shrugged, not looking away from Keith's face. “It’s not going to be for another few hours. Go and take your nap.”

 

Lance put a carefree expression on his face. “If you say so.”

 

He left, and it was only Shiro’s body and the body of his friend in the pod room. Shiro's mind was up and away, in that purple place. Black was there. Zarkon hadn’t been there since the whole major battle had happened. 

 

_ Tell me what I should do, _ Shiro said to his lion. She stood silent, and Shiro quickly rectified his mistake.  _ What should I do? _

 

The lion purred.  _ You did a good job today, saving your paladins, _ she said. Implied. Something.  _ They will all survive. _

 

_ So you see the future now, _ Shiro said, not quite a question, not quite a statement. 

 

_ I might,  _ Black said.  _ Probably not. I did not predict Zarkon, but I did predict you. _

 

_ Me specifically, or me as in ‘a person who will pilot the Black Lion’ kind of way,  _ Shiro asked, tired of empty gestures and incomplete prophecies.

 

_ You specifically,  _ Black said.  _ You with your scar and your hair and your heart, who puts the lives of his paladins before any of his own plans. Unlike Zarkon, who would rather kill his own family than suffer for power. You’re better. _

 

Shiro was oddly touched. He was better. He was worth the ten thousand year wait. He, specifically, was chosen for this, out of all the ten thousand years worth of organisms no doubt willing to pilot the Black Lion.

 

_ What was it like, right after Altea—fell, _ Shiro asked, lamely.

 

Black considered for a moment. If she had eyes like a human, not like a Galra, she would be looking up at the stars for an answer.  _ It was hectic, _ she said.

 

_ Alfor was dead. Zarkon wanted me back, desperately, but he couldn’t make a dent in the castle’s defenses. He gave up and decreed that no one was to step foot on Arus anymore, in case they were worthier than he was and would unite the lions and unlock me. _

 

_ He found me here, in the place where you stand. Sit, rather. We talked, and after some time, I realized I wanted him to do things and say things that he couldn’t. He wasn’t able to. Physically, yes, he could have, but it was his morals and his ethics—his specific code of conduct—that didn’t allow him to face his own sins. _

 

_ Like Voldemort,  _ Shiro said.

 

There was a pause.  _ I can understand your thoughts well, my paladin,  _ Black began,  _ as you can understand mine. However, there must always be a method of storytelling.  _

 

_ Okay,  _ Shiro said, because he understood what Black was too proud to say.  _ He was a storybook villain, Voldemort. Almost like Zarkon, if my life were a storybook.  _

 

_ Voldemort couldn’t feel remorse. That was how he was defeated. He had split his soul into seven pieces that were destroyed by the hero. And when the hero and Voldemort met at long last, after seventeen years, Harry—that’s the hero’s name—Harry taunted Voldemort, called him by his real name, asked him to feel something for all the lives he’d taken. To feel some remorse. So his soul could come back together again, so he could die a decent man. It broke him. _

 

Black was silent for a long time. Shiro couldn’t quite get a read on her; she was confused, she was locking him out. 

 

_ That is a rough story,  _ she finally said.  _ I would even call it Galran. Do you Earthlings always kill your villain? _

 

_ Not always,  _ Shiro said. _ But most of the time, yes. I—I hope we kill this one. _

 

_ Oh,  _ Black said, and they settled into comfortable silence.

 

* * *

 

“You’re back,” Shiro said, as Keith’s pod hissed open. 

 

Keith didn’t fall, not like Allura or Lance fell. He was too alert, always wide awake the second he woke up. He stumbled for a second, enough to make Shiro’s hand hover at his shoulders just in case, but Keith didn’t fall.

 

He blinked at the rest of the room. Everyone was there, even the mice. He should say something. Something in the affirmative, something to let them know he wasn’t scrambled.

 

“Unfortunately, we were heroes,” he muttered instead, a thought that had been floating around his head. Almost of its own accord, Keith’s finger pointed up at the ceiling. Keith forcefully dropped it before it got further than his shoulder.

 

The others looked confused. Lance said, “What?”

 

“I mean, I’m okay.” Keith blinked. He shouldn’t have said anything at all. Now everyone thought he was crazy. The silence might have dragged on. 

 

Shiro sighed, and took a step back once he was reassured Keith could stand on his own. “You—are you sure?” When Keith nodded, Shiro finally continued. “Okay. Why don’t we debrief first, and then we can have a half hour break. Then back to training. Got it?”

 

Allura positively beamed at the plan. “Sounds perfect, Shiro. We’ll let Keith get changed—” he hadn’t even realized he wasn’t wearing his armor— “and then we’ll all go to the debriefing room. Ten—er—minutes, everyone.”

 

They all filed out, leaving Keith behind. Shiro left too. Keith didn’t know why he made that distinct observation or why he almost didn’t want him to go, but he was alone in the pod bay with his casual clothes folded neatly by his pod.

 

Coran probably folded them. Keith wanted it to have been Shiro, but that was very unlikely. It had to have been Coran. Or Shiro. Probably Coran.

 

He shoved his legs through his jeans and those thoughts from his mind.

 

That left a thought vacuum, though, that something had to fill. Like power vacuums. Like Alexander the Great’s death. Like Queen Elizabeth I’s death. Like Zarkon’s death. Hopefully.

 

He pulled his jacket on and idly thought about color theory. Allura probably chose the Lions for their clothes, though Keith liked to think it was her alien magic that found something deep inside each of them that matched to their lions. It was just coincidence that their clothes matched. Keith tried not to think that it was probably coincidence that they had been chosen, out of all the people in the universe who no doubt would have piloted the lions better than they could have.

 

The Red Lion growled in Keith’s ear, like,  _ Stop that. _ He tried to brush off the bad thoughts without brushing off his lion. It was more difficult than it sounded, but Keith was getting better at it.

 

Last were his boots. He considered his gloves for half a second before shoving them in his pockets and shoving his hands in right after them. He played with the soft leather and thought he was ready enough to face the debriefing.

 

He wasn’t, not really. He tuned in and out of whatever Shiro was saying, and kept rubbing his gloves. They felt nice.

 

Shiro clapped once. “And now we have a break. Meet in the training room in half an hour for training.”

 

Lance and Hunk bounded out, Pidge right behind them. Allura and Coran followed in a more dignified manner. Keith sank lower in his chair and pulled out his gloves from his pockets, running his fingers over them to make the leather stretch from the folds.

 

“Hey,” Shiro said. 

 

Keith didn’t look up from his glove. “Go do some push-ups or whatever you do for fun.”

 

Shiro leaned on the back of Keith’s chair and stared down onto his glove. “And leave you to your thoughts? You wish.”

 

Keith sighed in an effort to get Shiro out of his face. He didn’t take the bait. Or the teenage angst. 

 

“So, what other stories you got to entertain me?” Shiro asked, letting his body hang loose.

 

Keith rubbed his gloves and considered. “Plenty,” he said, elusive in an effort to dissuade. “Why we have 365 days in a year and sixty minutes in an hour instead of good ten base units. How mint was created. What happened to the god of cucumbers. The Titan War. The Trojan War. This war.”

 

Shiro grumbled the slightest, and Keith smirked in return. He was capable of being difficult. 

 

“So choose.”

 

Keith didn’t turn to look, but he imagined Shiro’s face scrunched into something pissy. “Cucumbers,” he said.

 

“Yet another Greek myth,” Keith began. “It’s got my favorite goddess in it, though. Hestia, the goddess of the hearth and home. She’s not just my favorite—she’s the favorite of all the gods. 

 

“There are a few different opinions about Hestia’s birth, whether she was the first child or the last, but that’s not important. She’s Cronus and Rhea’s daughter, along with Zeus and Hera and all them. Everyone loves her. She’s the best of them all.

 

“She and Artemis, Diana, are virgin goddesses, which means they didn’t want to marry anyone. The first aro-aces, I guess. But one day the Olympians held a party, like they do, and Hestia had had a little too much to drink. She stumbled out into the woods and curled up to sleep underneath a donkey, because she’s just so good.

 

“So the god of cucumbers, he’s a total douchebag and he decides it’d be fine to give Hestia a few kisses or whatever while she was curled up underneath the donkey. But she doesn’t want. She woke up and started screaming. It echoed around the party, and the Olympians all heard. 

 

“They dropped everything and ran for their sister. It must have been terrifying, to have Zeus with his glowing lightning bolts and all them rain down on that insignificant god. The cucumber god was kicked by the donkey, too, I remember that. Before the other gods got there.

 

“So the cucumber god was cursed and beaten to the point where he looked like a garden gnome. He was humiliated and kicked out of Olympus, but he still retained his minuscule godlike powers.

 

“So the ancient Greek people started putting little statues of the cucumber god in their yards to promote the growth of cucumbers and other plants. And that’s why we have garden gnomes. For the god of cucumbers.”

 

Keith took a deep breath and wished he was close enough to the wall to summon a packet of water. He thought it was water, at least. Some sort of nourishing liquid.

 

Shiro leaned on the back of Keith’s chair and imagined Zeus raining down from above, shattering him with lightning bolts until he was as disfigured as the god of cucumbers. He tried, at least. 

 

Keith imagined it too, the sizzling burns he would feel and the heat rushing through his body. He would’ve probably died. He was still mortal, still fallible, half alien or no.

 

* * *

 

“Lance, Hunk, you take the right corridor,” Pidge commanded. “Shiro, Keith, the left. I’ll stay here and guide you through.”

 

Another extraction. Shiro was tired of extractions. First was Slav— _ how incredibly fun— _ and now this. Let’s hope it wasn’t as bad as last time.

 

“Roger,” he said to Pidge. “We’re on our way.”

 

“So,” Keith said, on their private line. “I wasn’t paying attention at all during Allura’s debriefing.”

 

“Right,” Shiro said, because of course Keith wasn’t. “We’re just extracting some information for Pidge. And liberating any prisoners on the way, if we find them.”

 

“That’s it?” Keith asked. “We don’t need all of us for this.”

 

Shiro shrugged, mostly because he had been thinking the same thing. 

 

They walked for a while in silence. They encountered no sentries, no drones, and no prisoners. It was eerily quiet. 

 

Eerie was a good word for it. Shiro couldn’t hear anything from Lance and Hunk—they were too far away, way out of range. That didn’t seem right.

 

If he was the man he was two years ago, he would have missed it. As it stood, the hairs on Shiro’s neck rose— _ In the kitchen. Intuition— _ and he whirled around, his arm rising in defense. He was able to say, quickly, “Keith—”

 

Keith yelled. Screamed like Shiro imagined Hestia did, being taken by the fucking  _ god of cucumbers. _ Shiro looked over his shoulder. Keith was being pulled to the ground by his hair or his armour, Shiro couldn’t tell. His glance cost him precious seconds, and Shiro’s metal arm (gone limp the slightest bit) was pulled, hard. He fell to the ground and wheezed.

 

_ “Shiro,”  _ Keith said. Shiro couldn’t risk another look at him. 

 

He rose to his feet, clutching his arm where he had felt it shift in its brace. That was an odd, terrible sensation. Glancing around, Shiro took in the Galra sentries—there they were, brought out of their hiding once Shiro and Keith were out of range of Pidge and any help.

 

Shiro gritted his teeth. His arm lit up—an unconscious reaction, like keeping his balance or any of the wrestling takedowns he knew. Shiro swung, hoping to down at least one of the sentries in their way. His arm hit air, again and again and again as the sentries side-stepped him. After a moment, Shiro realized they were trying to get behind him. 

 

Shiro lent a corner of his mind to Keith. Keith’s bayard had skittered to the floor at Shiro’s feet maybe a second ago (time was fluid in battle), but Shiro still heard soldiers grunting behind him. He could only imagine Keith fending off an army with his Marmora knife, or with his bare fists.

 

Someone took that small advantage—Shiro lending his hearing to Keith—and hit him in his temple.  _ Where were Solomon's temples? On either side of his head.  _ Shiro staggered. Someone else took advantage of that, and—

 

Shiro fell. 

 

Someone tried to clasp handcuffs on him, but they didn’t count on Shiro’s high school wrestling background. He just stood up and got back to fending them all off.

 

The Galra had an unfair advantage. Only one of them had to win, among what Shiro thought must be a hundred. Shiro had to win against all that hundred.

 

He was getting tired. It was hard, okay, fighting alone against hundreds of The Enemy. Shiro had been fighting for a lifetime.

 

Keith fell behind him. Shiro closed his eyes and let himself be taken.

 

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always say this in the end notes, but I'm serious about this—if you see something that could count as a squick or a trigger for other people or yourself, _please_ tell me so I can put it in the tags!

“Let us go,” Keith said, not for the first time. He leaned his weight on the bars of their holding cell. His cheeks squished against the cold, alien steel, and he blew air past his lips.

 

The sentry didn’t deign to reply. It was a robot. Keith guessed it didn’t have to reply.

 

Shiro was still unconscious. They had knocked him out when he resisted for the third time. Taking their helmets was the final straw, apparently. Three strikes,  _ yerr out,  _ Keith’s PE coach used to say. 

 

“Let us go,” Keith said again, no energy in it. He let the ‘o’ linger in the air between him and the sentry.

 

No reply. By now, Keith wasn’t expecting a reply.

 

He looked at the sentry for a moment with half-lidded eyes, idly contemplating hacking into its control chip and making it work for him. That was more Pidge’s thing, though, and nothing Keith could do.

 

Keith looked at Shiro. He lay on the floor in his flight suit with a peaceful look on his face, like he was getting the rest he deserved. Keith went to kneel by him.

 

He gently patted Shiro’s cheek a few times. It was more a parental gesture than an effort to wake him up. Keith figured Shiro needed the rest, though he’d chew Keith out for letting him sleep and not letting him keep watch.

 

_ Keep watch for what,  _ Keith wanted to ask Shiro. In their hypothetical little situation. 

 

_ I don’t know,  _ Shiro would say.  _ Danger. Constant vigilance. _

 

Keith glanced towards their door. The small action caused the fabric of his jacket to shift. It was deafeningly loud. Before they saw anything coming, they’d hear it. It was absolutely silent in the prison section of their ship.

 

Keith sat against the wall. He contemplated Shiro’s face and the death of generals—Alexander the Great, most likely poisoned by his former teacher. Julius Caesar, stabbed to death by his closest friends. Keith imagined his Marmora knife in Allura’s hand and shuddered. 

 

Keith’s knife and the rest of his paladin gear were lost, somewhere in Evidence of some other cargo ship. Keith and Shiro had gone from their original ship, the one they were ambushed on, forced onto another ship where they were stripped of their belongings (where his knife was), and locked onto yet another huge organism cargo ship. 

 

It was the end of an era. Keith’s knife had been with him ever since he could remember. He didn’t want to think about what this next era would hold for him.

 

Keith didn’t know why they were alone. Maybe they were high-priority prisoners, or too dangerous to be with anyone else. Keith just wished they’d been spread out a little more. Their cell was cramped, and Keith kept knocking knees with Shiro’s prone body.

 

Then Shiro groaned, and shifted, and opened his eyes. He blinked up at the ceiling.

 

“Hey,” Keith said quietly. 

 

Shiro rolled his head over to look at Keith sitting against the wall. He grinned faintly and closed his eyes again.

 

“What hurts?” Keith asked, because something had to hurt.

 

“Everything,” Shiro whispered. Keith drew his knees up to his chest.

 

“Can I help at all?”

 

“Tell me a story?”

 

Keith considered. “A Greek one good enough for you?”

 

Shiro sighed. “More than good.”

 

“Psyche and Eros,” Keith began. He didn’t know if this story was quite the best, but it was better than most. He tried to keep his voice low. “Eros was the goddess of beauty’s son. The goddess of beauty was mad because this woman, Psyche, was renowned for her beauty. So much so that people started praying to her instead of the goddess. The goddess was pissed. 

 

“She sent her son to make Psyche fall in love with some hideous monster. The thing is, Eros fell in love with her himself once he saw her. Which leads to some pretty interesting story devices. 

 

“Eros shot Psyche with his bow and arrow of love, and they were set to be married. The thing was, Psyche wasn’t allowed to look at Eros, or she could die. Too much beautiful. She married him anyway. 

 

“Her sisters didn’t approve. They told Psyche that she must have married this horrible, ugly beast. Psyche slowly became convinced that she had, even though Eros showered her with gold and riches and fine clothes. 

 

“So one night, as they slept together in total darkness, Psyche took up the candle at her bedside table and lit it. She saw Eros, and died, because she couldn’t handle seeing the true form of beauty. 

 

“Eros was heartbroken. He begged his mother to bring Psyche back from the dead, and she reluctantly agreed, only if Psyche was able to complete four tasks and prover her worth. She did, using the power of kindness and some other goddesses whose temples she cleaned up. The goddess wasn’t happy, but she had to give her blessing. 

 

“Eros and Psyche were happily married after that. Eros bargained with the king of the gods to make Psyche immortal, and she became a goddess herself. I can’t remember what of. 

 

“The end. Happy ending.” Keith closed his eyes and rested his head on his legs. All of the heat in his body was compressed there, and it was warm. 

 

He didn’t look at Shiro, but his breath had evened out. Keith guessed he had fallen back asleep. That was fine. Shiro didn't want to listen to Keith's horrible story anyways.

 

* * *

 

Keith was clapped in as many irons as Shiro. Truly, the Galra overestimated their power. 

 

Shiro gave an experimental tug at the magnetic cuffs at his wrists. The Galra soldier set to watch over him quickly raised his gun at Shiro, who raised his own hands in a gesture of surrender. 

 

“Move,” someone grunted, and poked Shiro in the back. He heard Keith clench his teeth beside him.

 

It was funny, because they stood in front of a pair of closed doors. Shiro grumbled a little himself, but he would deny it if anyone said anything.

 

They stood there for a moment, waiting for the doors to swing open. Shiro inspected his cuffs again, more discreetly this time. They were surrounded by maybe five or seven soldiers, each armed to the teeth. 

 

Finally, finally, the doors opened. The Galra soldier in command poked Shiro and Keith in the back again, and they walked forward.

 

The room beyond the doors had the air of a college professor’s office. It was more digitalized, of course, but very cluttered all the same. Almost like Commander Iverson’s desk, back at the Garrison. That was a trip.

 

A tired-looking Galra soldier- probably a commander- sat at the desk, shuffling through files. They gestured for Keith and Shiro to be brought forward without more than a single glance.

 

“Sir,” the Galra soldier behind Shiro said, thumping his breastplate. “We have two paladins of Voltron under our control, sir.”

 

“Very good,” the commander said, brushing their files aside. “I expect a full report of capture and procedure by 1100. We’ll hold their trial at 1200.”

 

_ Trial?  _ Shiro thought, nervous. He risked a glance at Keith, who was watching the Galra commander with fire in his eyes. Shiro could only feel cold dread settle in the pit of his stomach.

 

“Vrepit sa,” the soldier said, and it echoed around the room. Shiro shuddered.

 

Shiro and Keith were led back to their dingy cell. They had to keep their eyes forward and away from the other prisoners. Shiro didn’t want to see the other prisoners anywaysthey jeered at him, and Shiro could see some of them clinging to the bars of their cells. He heard  _ Champion  _ in several different languages.

 

“Why a trial,” Shiro asked Keith, who seemed to know everything. They were alone in their hallway again, and Shiro paced the short length of their cell.

 

Keith shrugged. “I’m guessing to make any punishment of ours legitimate. It’s a good political move, which really only makes sense if there are Voltron supporters high in the Galra hierarchy. Which makes no sense, but then again, nothing here makes sense.” 

 

“Huh,” Shiro said. “Okay.”

 

Keith narrowed his eyes. Shiro could see the gears grinding in his head. 

 

Shiro entertained thoughts of escape. He knew they were being guarded by robot sentries and security cameras. Smart move—Shiro couldn’t bribe either of those things. They were built to be loyal. 

 

Even if they did get past the steel door, the robots, and the cameras, they’d have to deal with the other prisoners. Shiro didn’t know how many of them wanted to rip them apart. He guessed around half. Shiro thought about their walk from the commander’s office—if the bars hadn’t been there, he and Keith would have been torn to shreds. The other half would want to come with them, which wouldn’t really work. Shiro thought about a prison riot. 

 

“Shiro,” Keith said. Shiro paused near the bars, then turned and leaned against them.

 

“Stop pacing,” Keith said gently. He patted the ground next to where he was sitting in silent invitation. 

 

Shiro hesitated a moment, meeting Keith’s eyes. Keith, insolently, patted the ground again.

 

Shiro sat down next to Keith. One point for small victories.

 

“You’re thinking too hard,” Keith whispered. Shiro didn’t know why they were whispering. Why were they whispering?

 

“You’re panicking,” Keith whispered again. “Take my hand.”

 

Shiro’s heart jackknifed in his chest. Quickly, before he could lose his courage, he took Keith’s hand and squeezed. Keith bore the pain without so much as a wince.

 

They stayed like that for a while, Keith talking quietly. No stories this time, just small comforts. Shiro’s heart rate slowed down. He didn’t know it had been hammering so fast.

 

He fell asleep on Keith’s shoulder. Kind as he was, Keith let him.

 

* * *

 

They were chained and brought to the courtroom. Keith didn’t move his hands at all.

 

It was small, but cameras were shoved in Keith’s face. He knew he was being broadcast across the empire and so kept his face carefully still. He hoped the Castle would pick up the broadcast. Hunk had modified the satellite dishes to pick up just about anything across the universe.

 

“Paladins,” the Galra commander from yesterday said. They sat upon a large podium, and Shiro and Keith knelt on the floor in front of them. A gun poked the back of Keith’s neck from time to time. He didn’t blame the soldier, who must have been swaying on his feet.

 

Keith didn’t say anything. 

 

Shiro said, “You don’t have anything to pin on us. We’re clean.”  _ We’re not clean, not at all,  _ Keith thought. A warship blown to pieces flashed in his mind, compounded to infinity. Thace looked at him, eyes serious, not smiling. Never smiling. They weren’t anything close to innocent. 

 

The commander flipped through some files. “We accuse you both of murder on innumerable accounts and treason against the Galra empire. How do you plead?”

 

“Not guilty,” Shiro said before Keith could say anything. 

 

The commander swept a file up and displayed it to the room. 

 

“This is a list,” they said. They scrolled down several pages. The room was silent. 

 

“This is a list of every ship you have destroyed,” the commander continued, “ranging from Class 16-C to Class 1-A. There is a rough approximate average crew of one thousand Galra soldiers, and a rough approximate average of two thousand Galra civilians, on each Galra ship. The crew number of 16-A ships is one. The crew number of 1-A ships is seventy thousand.

 

“There has not been one single survivor on any ship destroyed since Voltron rose. You are responsible for the lives of over seven hundred, seventy-four  _ thousand _ Galra soldiers and civilians. Do you understand me?” 

 

Keith was glad he was kneeling. As it was, he swayed a little. The liquid in his mouth pooled. 

 

Shiro stared wide-eyed at the list. He choked. “I don’t—we didn’t—”

 

The commander silenced him with a gesture. “Do you consider yourselves living organisms?”

 

Keith blinked. “Yes, but not for much longer,” he snarked. Shiro whined in the back of his throat, a desperate plea to  _ shut up. _

 

Soft laughter rippled around the room, but it was extinguished quickly enough. The commander didn’t find it funny. “Then under Law 623 section A section iii, you are a Galra citizen. The Law states as follows: Every living organism in the universe belongs to the Galra Empire, glorious may it be, all hail Emperor Zarkon.” The commander paused to let the phrase echo lightly around the room. Keith was reminded of students mumbling along to the Pledge of Allegiance every morning before class started.  _ The Galra empire, glorious may it be, all hail Emperor Zarkon.  _ In a lilting voice,  _ I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.  _

 

“As a Galra citizen, you have acted against the reign of our emperor directly. You have attempted to usurp him from his throne for reasons unknown. Are you aware of what ‘treason’ means?”

 

“Yeah,” Keith said. His voice was cold and nonchalant. It was a skill to be (at least to appear) cool under such intense pressure. 

 

“Then you know what you have done is treason,” the commander said. “You have committed the crimes of treason and murder. The evidence has been laid in front of you, as the people in this room are my witness. How do you plead?”

 

Shiro and Keith were silent for a long moment that stretched into a full minute. Keith’s mind worked furiously. 

 

“Guilty,” Shiro whispered. Keith snapped his head to glare at him. 

 

The commander shifted on their seat. “I’m sorry, please repeat that.”

 

“Guilty,” Shiro yelled, heartbroken.

 

The commander nodded at the soldier behind Shiro, who hauled him up. Shiro’s legs didn’t support his weight for a split second. 

 

The commander took in a breath, then hesitated. They turned their head the slightest fraction to gaze at Keith. “And you, halfling?”

 

Keith’s breath caught in his throat. He didn’t— “Guilty,” he said, his voice as even as an early morning’s ocean. 

 

The commander nodded, and Keith was pulled to his feet as well. He looked at Shiro, who was breathing hard, who was panicking.

 

“For the crimes of treason and murder,” the commander said, “I sentence you both to seven hundred, seventy-four thousand lifetimes of fighting in the arena.”

 

* * *

 

They were going to be moved in the morning. Shiro sat close to the wall, his head between his legs, at the instruction of Keith. Keith moved his hand soothingly over Shiro’s back. He never actually said “there, there,” but the implication was present. 

 

Shiro thought of small comforts. His mom. His grandparents house. Brightly colored candy wrappers. He rocked back and forth and forced himself to fall asleep. 

 

He dreamt. There was blood, and breathing, and sand. 

 

“The spanish word for sand is ‘arena’,” Keith said. He said it like  _ ah-RÈN-ah,  _ and rolled his ‘r’s besides _.  _ “They call arenas that because the sand would absorb the blood.”

 

Shiro watched blood drip down steadily onto the arena floor. _a-REE-na,_ _ah-RÈN-ah._

 

His arm lay in front of him. It was fresh as the day it had been lopped off. Lopping usually referred to cutting branches off of trees. Of course his arm came from a tree. Why wouldn’t it have?

 

“Echo,” Keith said. Shiro stood on a desert mesa and felt the wind whip around his arms and his hair. He looked at Keith with his hair short like it used to be. “Do you know the echo echo echo…?” 

 

He fell. And he woke. 

 

“Arena,” Shiro said, like  _ ah-RÈN-ah.  _ Keith snorted awake. 

 

The robot that had been standing just to the right of their cell door this entire time stood right in front of them. “Rise,” it said.

 

Shiro and Keith rose.

 

“Come with me,” the robot said. 

 

Shiro and Keith went with it.

 

They weren’t clasped in irons, but they went anyways. Shiro thought they deserved it. He believed in karma, even after everything. If this was the price they had to pay, then okay. Shiro knew the universe knew what it was doing.

 

The robot led them to the back of a mob of prisoners. None of them were chained, yet all of them shuffled onto their cargo shuttles without complaint. Shiro didn’t want to think about what the soldiers must have done to them. 

 

Shiro and Keith were prodded onto a shuttle as well. They had to stand because there wasn’t any room to sit. 

 

Keith’s body pressed close to Shiro’s. When the shuttle started to move, Keith pressed impossibly close. If it was any other situation. If they hadn’t killed— _ murdered  _ almost eight hundred thousand people. 

 

The ride was long, and Shiro swayed. It hurt to stand for so long, but he could do it. Just like a party, but without the alcohol or the music. It was silent in the shuttle. Shiro wanted something to happen.

 

A small bump, and the shuttle landed in what a Galra would call a Class 5-B ship. It was big, but not too big, and wasn’t used for war. A-classified ships were war and weapons. C-classified ships were commercial transport or pleasure. B-classified ships were prisons and arenas. Sand. 

 

They had to go through basic check-ups to make sure they were healthy. A very small amount of aliens were taken away from the main body. Shiro suspected they would be either taken to work camps or killed. 

 

They had to strip and shower—more like be sprayed with a fire hose. Shiro cringed from the sting. 

 

Shiro and Keith were in the same cell. Thank the universe for small mercies. It was built for two, along with every other cell block in their long hallway. It looked like Alcatraz, built to hold as many prisoners as possible. There were three levels of cells. Shiro and Keith were at the top. 

 

The rest of their hallway filled up fast. There must have been more prisoners than the ones on Shiro and Keith’s trial ship. Shiro almost missed the privacy they had—someone was already making too much noise next door. 

 

Keith lay on his bed and stared at the ceiling. He hadn’t said a word since they had been stripped. His face was carefully blank. 

 

Shiro sat on the edge of Keith’s bed. He laid his human hand on Keith’s leg just for the human contact. Half-human contact. Everything was so strange. Every- _ one _ was strange. 

 

Their neighbor grunted, then hit the wall dividing their cells. Shiro jumped. 

 

Keith grumbled, the most reaction he’d shown since they were brought here, and weakly banged back. “Shut up,” he muttered. Shiro quickly ran his hand down Keith’s leg, trying to calm him down. Keith lay his hand across his chest and glared at the wall.

 

Food was given to them. Shiro gazed over the expanse of the prison as he ate. He was used to the odd prison food, the way some of it squished and some of it smelled revolting. Keith ate all of his food without a problem.

 

“Guess it’s the Galra in me,” he said casually. “I can eat all their food.”

 

Shiro shrugged. “That’s fair.”

 

They weren’t allowed out of their cells. None of the prisoners were. Shiro imagined a life there, in the tiny ten-by-six cell. They’d have to fight, yes, but in between that they’d live in their little cell. 

 

Keith fell asleep on his bed. Shiro considered sleeping with him, just for half-human contact, then crawled into the bed on the opposite side of the cell. It was cold. 

 

They were awoken by a harsh clanging sound. Shiro guessed it was the Galra’s poor imitation of bells. Keith was awake in a moment, but Shiro took some time getting up. He knew what was going to happen. Food was shoved into cells, and they ate.

 

Galra soldiers walked down the multiple walkways. They paused at random doorways and would gesture to one of the inhabitants inside silently. 

 

They started at the bottom level and slowly made their way up. Shiro and Keith leaned against the bars of their cell, trying to see onto the floors below. 

 

A Galra soldier stood impassively in front of their cell. She pointed at Keith to step forward, which he did. Shiro choked on his spit trying to tell her  _ No, no, not him, I’ll go first. I want to go first.  _ He felt helpless.

 

The cell doors clanged open. Shiro winced hard and missed the look Keith shot him. The Galra soldier pointed her gun at Shiro to  _ Stay where you are _ and grabbed Keith by his bicep. 

 

Before Shiro could utter a word, she had locked Keith’s hands behind his back and slammed the door shut. Shiro rushed at the door and threw his body against it, trying to reach Keith, to stop them, to do  _ something.  _

 

_ “Keith,”  _ he whined. “Come back. Please come back.”

 

Keith stared back at Shiro as he stumbled along with the soldier, many other prisoners in the same predicament. Shiro saw Keith’s mouth move to say his name, but he couldn’t hear anything over the thunder in his head. Shiro’s heart jackknifed in his chest and his breath came in short bursts. 

 

Shiro stumbled back, unable to watch his best friend be taken away. His back hit the wall, and he slid down. He remembered Keith pushing his head down between his knees. 

 

Shiro’s hands clenched into fists almost involuntarily. Shiro bent forward a fraction too far and hit his head on the floor. He was just trying to put his head between his knees.

 

_ ah-RÈN-ah,  _ Keith’s voice whispered. Shiro whimpered.

 

The person in the next cell banged on the wall. Shiro jumped, hard, and wheezed. 

 

_ Friend, _ the alien beyond said (implied. Something),  _ think not of yourself in this moment. Think of yourself in another moment far away. _

 

Shiro squeezed his eyes shut and imagined Keith standing on a desert mesa, wind whipping through his hair. His breathing stepped down from desperate to just panicked. 

 

Shiro felt the alien next door place their hand gently onto the wall. Shiro didn’t know how, and he didn’t know why, but he placed his own hand where he knew the other’s was and relaxed his eyes.

 

The alien must have been sending him good brain waves. Some aliens could do that, Shiro knew from his last time as a prisoner. They had antenna that vibrated just the right way. 

 

That was fine. Shiro relaxed. 

 

“Thank you,” he whispered to the alien. The alien didn’t reply, but they did send Shiro a higher dose of whatever brain waves it was producing. 

 

Shiro sat cross-legged (criss-cross-applesauce) on the floor and leaned his forehead next to his hand. The metal was cool at first, but slowly heated up under Shiro’s body temperature until it was clammy. Shiro didn’t move his head.

 

They stayed like that for a long time. A plate of food appeared in the door, and Shiro wondered idly if Keith was being fed. Maybe. Shiro couldn’t remember. 

 

They must have stayed like that for hours. Eventually, a small trickle of prisoners made its way back to their cells. It was only a few prisoners at a time, and Shiro waited with anxious mind and body to see his shock of black hair. 

 

Keith came with his own personal escort of four guards, as if they were scared of what he could do. Like he was an animal. His hands were still locked behind his back, and all four of the guard’s guns were trained on him. Shiro clenched the bars of their cell until he was gestured away. Very aware of what they would do if he disobeyed, Shiro took five steps back.

 

They unceremoniously opened the door and tossed Keith inside like he was trash. He stumbled and fell to his knees and didn’t resist when a soldier placed their gun to the back of his neck and took off his cuffs. His expression was so carefully blank.

 

Shiro waited until the door clanged close before he knelt by Keith’s side. He took one of Keith’s hands in his own human one and didn’t say anything. He couldn’t say anything. 

 

Keith’s eyes slipped closed, and he leaned forward to rest his forehead on Shiro’s chest. Shiro heard Keith take in a deep, rattling breath, but he still didn’t say anything. There wasn’t anything to say. 

 

* * *

 

Keith wasn’t hungry. Some Galra soldier slid food into their cells maybe half an hour after they took him back. 

 

Keith closed his eyes and saw red staining his eyelids. He knew it was light streaming through his own bloodstreams, but he opened them again anyways. All that greeted him was Shiro looking at him, a small piece of some unidentifiable food on his chin. Keith raised his eyebrows at him and gestured at Shiro,  _ hey, you’ve got something on your face. _

 

Shiro flushed and swept at his face.  Keith grinned. 

 

The grin slipped off his face when Keith looked at his own food. It was grainy, like risotto or polenta. Keith poked it. It jiggled.

 

Shiro rolled his eyes and wordlessly gestured at Keith to use his spoon. Keith rolled his eyes right back. The alien next door banged on the wall, and both Shiro and Keith jumped.

 

Keith shoveled a small bit of the risotto in his mouth. It was decent for prison food. Bland, but that was to be expected.

 

Keith desperately didn’t think about the angry, seven-hour block of time between when he was taken out of his cell and when he was thrown back in. He poked his risotto with the spoon. It jiggled again.

 

“Just eat, Keith,” Shiro said. He deliberately ate his own risotto and stared Keith down.

 

Keith grumbled but ate most of it. He wasn’t hungry, but he needed the nutrients. 

 

Shiro set his dishes down. Keith glanced up at him, then set his own dishes down. He knew Shiro wanted to talk about what happened in that angry seven-hour time block. People don’t go through these things unscathed.

 

“Keith,” Shiro said. Keith looked at his plate. There was still a small lump of space polenta left. 

 

“Talk to me, Keith,” Shiro said.

 

Keith hesitated, thinking furiously. He said, “This is a story of Heracles. In the Roman times, they called him Hercules and his father was Jove or Jupiter. In the Greek times, they called him Heracles, glory of Hera, because he was Zeus’s illegitimate child, and Hera was mad.”

 

His voice scraped past his throat. That was probably a result of screaming, but whatever. “When he was born, his mother placed him in his crib without thinking of divine vengeance. Hera stepped down from a golden cloud and stood in Hercules’s room. She brought two snakes with her, and without a second glance, threw them in Hercules’s crib.

 

“When Hercules’s mom came to check on her son, she screamed—not because Hercules was dead, no, but because as a toddler he'd strangled two live, poisonous snakes and tied them together in a knot.”

 

Keith swallowed past the lump in his throat. “From that day forward, the story of Hercules’s strength spread through the land. Hera was furious, but she couldn’t kill him since her husband was watching his son grow up. She did get back to him in cruel ways, but that’s a story for another time.”

 

Keith slouched. His back hurt.

 

Shiro blinked. Keith carefully didn’t look at him. He considered his polenta, then scooped up the remaining bit and shoved it in his mouth.

 

“Okay,” Shiro said. “Do you not want to talk about what happened?”

 

Keith squeezed his eyes shut against the image of a literal pile of corpses being shoveled off the battlefield. He clenched his fist around an imaginary knife and shook his head.

 

“Okay,” Shiro said gently. “That’s fine. That's fine. We all take some time to get over that.”

 

Keith nodded without looking at Shiro.

 

Later, they lay on their separate beds. Shiro was asleep with his hand pressed flat against the wall. Keith stared up at the ceiling with his hands clasped on his stomach. He sniffed once, hard, and remembered wiping blood from his nose. 

 

There had been an alien, almost feline but neon orange and bipedal, who tried to make friends with Keith. They made a temporary alliance, and fought back to back for some time. Keith clenched his hand around the handle of his knife and wiped the sweat from his brow. 

 

All the fighting had kicked up clouds of sand, and Keith could barely see. His breath escaped around clenched teeth. It was a free-for-all that was only supposed to last for five hundred seconds. The prisoner who killed the most other prisoners in those five hundred seconds was allowed to leave early. Everyone else stayed and dueled until there were only ten left. 

 

Keith came  _ this  _ close to killing the most people. After he was taken out of the arena, he was stripped and hosed down again, mostly to get the blood and sweat off. There might have still been blood under his fingernails, if Keith didn’t keep them short and methodically scraped them clean. He used to use mechanical pencils, but space was short of mechanical pencils.

 

The neon orange alien called himself Aiber. He was still out there, somewhere in the prison, waiting to fight again. Keith wondered if he’d see him again. 

 

Keith wiped the sweat from his brow, not for the first time. Maybe it was for the same time. Someone came at him with a spear (a lance) and Keith neatly sidestepped the length of it, taking Aiber with him. The spear holder struck the alien Aiber had been fighting. Keith snapped the spear in half and stabbed its bearer. 

 

It was brutal. Keith was methodical about it, trying not to keep count of the people he killed. And he didn’t think anything about ‘setting them free’ or anything poetic like that. No. He  _ killed _ them.

 

Almost seven hours later, when there were only ten people left, the same sound that woke them that morning sounded in the arena. Aiber winced and clutched his head. Keith gritted his teeth and tried to stamp down his anger.

 

They were led out and given their hose-down. Aiber’s cell was in Hallway 2, and Keith’s was in Hallway 4, so they were roughly separated. “Find me,” Aiber shouted, “someday. Please.” Keith only nodded.

 

Keith rolled over to lay on his side facing Shiro, who kept his palm pressed flat against the wall. It didn’t seem like any nightmares bothered him, though they had maybe six months ago, when Shiro was freshly broken out of a prison exactly like this one. 

 

Each Hallway—1 to 6—was filled with roughly a thousand prisoners, Aiber told him. Only around a hundred prisoners fought each day, and only about eighty died. Despite what Keith thought, the Galra empire didn’t take that many prisoners to fight in the arena. Some were killed outright, some were taken to labor camps, and some got off with a fine and a stern warning. The Galra Empire had to conserve their prisoners. 

 

Only eighty prisoners died out of six thousand each day. It wasn’t nearly seven hundred seventy four thousand people, but it all felt more personal. 

 

Keith rolled again to face the wall.  _ Sleep,  _ he told himself.

 

* * *

 

_ Good luck, _ the alien next door told Shiro. 

 

It woke him a full minute before the alarm did. Shiro rolled over to look at Keith, who was sleeping on his back. 

 

“Thank you,” Shiro whispered to the alien. He knocked gently on the wall.

 

The alien banged back. Maybe they didn’t understand ‘gently’. 

 

Keith woke with a gasp. He bolted upright, then fell back down onto his bed when he realized nothing had happened.

 

Shiro heard some grumbling from the people down their hallway. Then the piercing alarm sounded, and everyone grumbled louder.

 

Food appeared. Shiro’s stomach clenched. He glared at the Galra soldier who lingered near their cell, trying to be intimidating. Shiro was told he had a very scary glare. The soldier hurried along.

 

It was the same grain dish from yesterday. Shiro looked at it, puzzled, then went to the wall and leaned his forehead on it.  Keith stared at him like he was crazy when he asked the alien next door, “What’s this food called?”

 

The alien responded immediately.  _ It is called po-phum. It is supposed to be safe for all organisms across the universe to consume, as it is based on a simple sugar and carbohydrate formula. _

 

“Thanks,” Shiro murmured. 

 

_ Of course. _

 

Shiro turned back to Keith. “This is po-phum,” he told him. 

 

“You just talked to a wall,” Keith said. “What the hell.”

 

“Correction,” Shiro said smugly, sitting cross-legged across from Keith. “I just talked to the alien next door. They told me what this food is.”

 

“It’s polenta,” Keith said dryly. “Or risotto. Polenta-risotto. Didn’t need a genius to figure that out.”

 

“Ah, that is where you are incorrect,” Shiro said wisely, ignoring Keith’s mutter of  _ don’t talk like that.  _ “This is po-phum, like I told you, and it’s a blend of simple sugars and carbohydrates.”

 

“Fine, fine,” Keith said, waving off Shiro’s words. “Let’s just eat and see what’s going to happen today.”

 

The alien next door banged on the wall. Keith jumped and Shiro grinned. 

 

“Yeah, yeah,” Keith grumbled, shoving the po-phum in his mouth. “Po-phum whatever. It’s food.”

 

Shiro and Keith waited for the guards to come. They talked about nothing—Earth, Voltron, if they were going to be rescued, if anyone knew where they were, Shiro’s mom back on Earth, grave upkeep.

 

A guard came, and pointed at Shiro. He rose knowing his fate. Keith didn’t want to let him go, but a gun was pressed to the back of Keith’s neck and irons were clasped around Shiro’s wrists and he was led away.

 

Shiro heard it again,  _ Champion, _ in all the languages he knew.  _ neh-PTAH-reh. THAK-la-doon. SAH-turn. ash-ROO. _

 

_ ah-RÈN-ah,  _ Keith’s voice whispered in his ear.  _ Echo. _

 

Shiro shuddered lightly. Neptare. Takladun. Saatorne. Achreux. Champion. 

 

_ Hello,  _ Shiro heard. He looked up at the alien standing on his left. 

 

Shiro blinked.  _ You’re the—prisoner in the cell next to mine,  _ he thought.

 

The alien waved their antennae.  _ Correct. _

 

Shiro had to look up to take in the entire alien. They were tall, and muscly—shaped like a Dorito, like Captain America. Light gray, smooth carapace, small eyes, wide face, long mouth, antennae. 

 

_ Hello,  _ Shiro said.  _ Nice to see you face to face. _

 

_ You are smaller than I thought you would be,  _ the alien said.  _ I have heard many stories of Champion. We thought you were dead. _

 

_ I thought I was dead, too,  _ Shiro thought.  _ Guess not. _

 

“Hey,” one of the Galra soldiers barked. “You two. Stop lookin’ at each other like that. I can tell you’re communicating. Do I gotta separate you two?”

 

Shiro quickly tore his gaze from his neighbor. “No, ma’am,” he said. 

 

The soldier grunted. “Din’t give you permission to speak,” she muttered. “Wh’ever. You’re gonna die today anyway. That Anpoolan, they peaceful creatures. Never caught dead fightin’.”

 

Shiro risked a quick side glance at the alien—Anpoolan, apparently. They stood stock still, facing forward. Shiro couldn’t tell their emotions from their face. 

 

“Why’m I talkin’ to you,” the Galra muttered. “Get movin’. Inspection’s over, getta move on. Gotta lotta fightin’ t’ do today.”

 

Shiro shuffled forward with the rest of the prisoners. They were unlocked one at a time, and allowed one weapon. Shiro chose a sword. 

 

“Alright, plemunkets, lissen up,” the Galra from before said. Shiro guessed she was the one in charge. “This’s the free-for-all round. The player with th’ most kills racked up gets a free pass back to their cell. Er’one else gets t’ duel. This round lasts five hunnerd seconds or ticks, or thirteen sleunes, or fifty kernets. Got it?”

 

There was a general affirmative from the prisoners assembled.

 

“Good,” the Galra soldier said. “The doors’ll open in fifty seconds. Once you all file inside, wait for th’ sound t’ begin fightin’. Once the sound happens again, drop your weapon like it’s life or death situation, ’cause it is. We shootcha if you don’t drop ya weapons.”

 

She tensed. “Good luck.”

 

The doors opened, and Shiro wished he had time to stretch before the fight. The stands were filled with screaming spectators. 

 

The Anpoolan stayed by Shiro's side.  _ You can protect me,  _ they said. 

 

_ Yes,  _ Shiro said.  _ What’s your name? _

 

_ Ophelia,  _ they said. 

 

Shiro tested the weight of his sword.  _ Ophelia,  _ he said.  _ Stay behind me and wave anyone off if they come towards you.  _

 

Shiro tensed. 

 

The alarm rang, and Shiro immediately fended off an attack from a small knife. 

 

The assailant grinned.  _ “Achreux,” _ they said. 

 

Shiro kicked them away. He swiped wildly with his sword, trying to knock the alien’s knife from his hand. 

 

_ Focus,  _ Ophelia said.  _ Up with your right hand. Side-step. Lunge.  _ The knife clattered to the ground, raising a small puff of dust. Shiro ran his sword through the alien like it was nothing. 

 

_ Thank you,  _ he told Ophelia.  _ I thought you were peaceful?  _

 

_ That doesn’t mean I don’t know how to fight,  _ Ophelia said, sounding mildly offended.  _ Much can change in ten thousand years under such a ruthless empire. _

 

Shiro blocked another sword. Looked almost like a rapier. He glanced behind him to where Ophelia was fending off two aliens with their staff. Shiro thought of Allura.

 

Just a flash, but enough for the other to get a deep cut in. Shiro grunted and clutched his shoulder. 

 

He sliced randomly at his opponent, who fell at his feet, blood pooling from his own deep cut. Shiro blinked hard. 

 

_ Think of yourself in another place,  _ Ophelia said. They sent a picture of Keith and that desert mesa being whipped by the wind. 

 

“Echo,” Shiro muttered to himself. 

 

_ Yes,  _ Ophelia said, because Shiro understood. 

 

Shiro fought like a demon. He thought of the Tasmanian Devil from Looney Tunes, in his own little tornado. 

 

He got the most kills, but only because everyone came for him. They wanted the glory of killing Champion. 

 

Ophelia had the least kills. They displayed it on a leadership board. Reminded Shiro of a football field’s scoreboard, almost. 

 

_ 14 kills,  _ Shiro’s name said. Only fourteen. 

 

Shiro was led to an empty room. There was a one-way window lining one wall. 

 

He was stripped unceremoniously. Shiro flushed down to his chest when he imagined the people behind the window. They could see everything, every little cut and scar. Nothing much else to see. 

 

He wasn’t prepared for the fire hose. It stung, and Shiro’s wound from that rapier re-opened. Shiro tried to pinch the skin closed. He knew he wouldn't get proper medical care. 

 

The water turned pink, then faded to clear again. Shiro tried to get the undersides of his feet. 

 

They gave him fresh clothes. He wondered what prisoner died in them. 

 

He wasn’t led back into his cell, not quite yet. He watched the duels from a control room on a screen, someone measuring his levels of quintessence.

 

Ophelia somehow won their duels. Time wasn’t a constraint in these things, but Ophelia refused to kill any of their opponents. They would just leave them unconscious. The crowd booed them more often than not.

 

Ophelia went through five different duels. They lived. Shiro sighed in relief, thankful that his friend lived. 

 

Friend. Huh.

 

Finally, finally, he was led back to his cell. All the prisoners were led back in small increments. 

 

Shiro’s arm began to throb. Shiro pinched the skin closed, then quickly wiped pus off on his (new, freshly washed) shirt. 

 

Poisoned. And no medical treatment. Shiro should’ve expected this, honestly. 

 

He was too weak to stand by the time he got to his cell. The soldier pointed their gun at Keith to back off. Keith didn’t back off. He was bashed on the side of the head and fell. Shiro couldn’t do anything but watch. 

 

The handcuffs fell. Shiro thought of fourteen lives, reduced to only a number. 

 

Keith rubbed his forehead and carefully positioned Shiro so he was lying on his back. The poison wouldn’t be fatal, but it would hurt like a bitch.

 

Seven hundred, seventy four thousand. Shiro said, “Tell me a story where the hero doesn’t win.”

 

Keith hesitated. “I don’t know,” he said softly. “I can tell you a story where the hero dies.”

 

Shiro closed his eyes. “Please.” 

 

He heard Keith move slightly. “Theseus was the prince of Athens,” he began. “He left to fight the Minotaur in Crete and sailed away from his palace, which was built on a cliff’s edge. His father told him to sail under white sails if he lived, black sails if he died.

 

“Theseus met a princess in Crete, and they fell in love,” Keith said. He paused for a moment. “He got distracted, and his crew mates convinced him to leave her behind on the journey back to Athens. She was abandoned on an island in the middle of the ocean, all alone, where the god of wine found her.

 

“Dionysus,” Keith began, then Shiro heard his throat close up. 

 

“I’m sorry,” Keith whispered. “I don’t think—” He gulped.

 

Shiro slowly opened his eyes and grabbed Keith’s hand. “Hey,” he whispered, “it’s okay. It’s okay.”

 

“Yeah.” Keith sniffed. “Sorry. It’s, this part always gets me—cause, you know, abandonment. I’m sorry.”

 

Shiro ran his thumb over Keith's knuckles. “It’s okay,” he said again, because it was all he knew. “It’s okay.”

 

“Stop saying that,” Keith said, nothing above a choked whisper. “I know.”

 

He took a deep, rattling breath. “Okay,” he said, “okay. Theseus. Dionysus found his princess on the island, and he fell in love with her, and she became his immortal wife. He cursed Theseus to forget the white sails, black sails thing. Theseus sailed into Athens under black sails. His father jumped off the palace roof.”

 

Shiro’s eyes slipped back closed. “God,” he whispered, because that was all he could say. 

 

“Yeah,” Keith agreed. “So Theseus became the King of Athens. He was good at first, got married. Then his wife died, and he got worse.

 

“He was still carried by his victory in Crete over the Minotaur. He thought he was invincible, and his buddies all had to agree with him, because he was their king.”

 

Keith paused for a long moment. “Right,” he whispered. “Theseus said that he was going to go to the Underworld and steal Hades’s bride Persephone. He thought she was the ultimate conquest.

 

“So he goes with his buddy, and they enter the Underworld. The walk from the mortal world to the Underworld takes ages. Hours, maybe, days. Theseus and his friend were old men by this point. They got tired.

 

“So they sat down to rest on a block of stone. Just to catch their breath. They—” Keith paused, and curled in on himself so Shiro could feel his forehead on their clasped hands. “They never got up. Maybe Dionysus was still mad at him for abandoning the one person who helped him back in Crete. Maybe Hades punished him for thinking he, a mere mortal, could steal his wife. Persephone might have punished them herself.

 

“Theseus and his friend died on that rock. Their bodies became petrified and eventually a part of the rock itself. I’m sorry, I can’t—” Keith tore his hand away from Shiro’s and abruptly stood up. Shiro felt the air displacement and cracked his eyes open.

 

Keith stood facing away from him, towards the back of their cell. He held his head in his hands. Shiro could hear soft gasps coming from him. 

 

“I’m sorry,” Keith said, sounding like someone was ripping his heart from his chest, and he was apologizing for the blood staining their hands. “I don’t—”

 

Shiro sat up, too hurt to do anything more than that.

 

“How do they get rid of the bodies here,” Keith asked, his voice nothing above a breath. “How do they—”

 

Shiro lay speechless. He couldn’t answer, he didn’t know, they didn’t—

 

Keith rubbed his face vigorously. “I’m sorry,” he said again, never done with apologizing. “I shouldn’t have asked you that.”

 

Keith’s voice was flat. Shiro lay propped up on one elbow, unable to tear his eyes away from Keith, who wrapped his arms around himself in a sick parody of a hug.

 

“That’s it,” Keith said dully. “That’s the story. The moral is don’t think you’ve won a thing. Don’t think you deserve a thing because you did something in the past. It doesn’t work like that.” Keith wrapped his arms around himself tighter. “The gods will find a way to strike you down for your pride,” he mumbled.

 

Shiro’s heart clenched in his chest.  _ Champion,  _ in several different languages, stomped around his head.

 

“It’s never worked like that,” Keith muttered.

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> If you want to imagine Ophelia in your mind, they're basically Gantu from Lilo and Stitch but with antennae. I'd researched po-phum on the internet, and it turns out there's a region in Cambodia called Phum Po Banteay Chey, but that was the closest result. Does anyone know if it's against the law if I publish the Pledge of Allegiance? 
> 
> 774,000.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where body modification comes in.

At first, Keith thought it was a wound. He didn’t find Aiber this time, and he was on his own. Still didn’t get the most kills. He didn’t want to get the most kills. He had to get the most kills. 

 

He was smaller than most of his opponents. That came with its pros and cons. The duels were hard. Keith never knew when he was going to participate in them or how long they’d take or who he’d have to fight. 

 

In his downtime, Keith sat in a sealed room with all the other prisoners. He looked them all in the eye and wondered how many he’d have to kill today.

 

A soldier poked him with her gun. “Up.”

 

Keith rose. He said nothing, just went.

 

He was led to the arena and given a sword. A blade, rather, since he didn’t actually know what to call it. He didn’t know what to call anything. 

 

The doors on the opposite side of the arena opened. Keith saw glowing eyes in the darkness beyond and snorted. It looked like something from some cheesy cartoon back home, like Scooby-Doo, intimidating to little kids but just clichèd for adults.  _ You’re only nineteen, Keith. _

 

A deep huff echoed through the arena, cutting through the roar of the crowd.  _ You’re a dead man walking,  _ it said. Keith gripped the pommel of his blade tighter.

 

A beast walked forward. Crawled forward, rather—it moved like an ape crouched on its knuckles. It wasn’t quite as furry as an ape, though, and Keith heard screams of  _ ‘Smaug! Smaug! Smaug!’ _

 

No, that couldn’t be right. Smawg, maybe, if he had to write it down. One simple letter change.

 

Keith shook his head.  _ Stop it. Focus,  _ he told himself. 

 

The smawg circled around the arena, testing its limits. It leaped up at the stands and got electrocuted for its troubles. 

 

It was about twice the size of Keith. Maybe a Shiro and three quarters. Keith tensed, waiting for the beast to realize he was in its area of operations.

 

The smawg snuffled around. Keith slowly made his way to the middle of the battlefield, facing the smawg at all times. The crowd faded to a dull roar.

 

Slowly, slowly, the smawg turned to face Keith. He could see its beady eyes on top of its butt face. 

 

Keith raised his blade. It was a little longer than his forearm—not big enough to adequately defend himself against this smawg thing. Keith’s knees went a little weak when he realized he was supposed to die out here.

 

The smawg stalked forward. Keith tried to control his breathing. The roar of the crowd sounded like sick background music for this horror movie.

 

The smawg roared, drowning out all other sound. Or smell. Keith’s hair blew back, and he tried to keep his ground. He felt bile rise in his throat and gagged.

 

_ Demon.  _ Keith swung wildly with his blade, trying to get a hit. It bounced off of the smawg’s hide and caused Keith’s arm to rebound. Felt like rubber. Keith, deliriously, thought about the texture of rubber gloves and how they made his hands feel sweaty and odd. 

 

The smawg roared again, and Keith wobbled. So far, it seemed like it was trying to get him away from its territory—scaring, not fighting. Fighting would come soon. 

 

Keith backed off one or two steps, then turned to the side and retcheted. It burned.

 

The smawg paced closer and began to circle Keith. He kept it in the corner of his eye, turning subtly as he could. His stomach rolled and rioted.

 

The smawg lept. Keith ducked out of the way and choked on his bile. The crowd roared, wavering in Keith’s mind. 

 

Keith was knocked over by the next leap. The smawg bowled him over and pinned him down on his back. Keith rolled wildly and, purely by chance, swung his blade into the soft underside of the smawg’s throat.

 

It was a deep cut, and squirted Keith with blood. Keith gasped for breath as the smawg bellowed.

 

Back in the desert, Keith had had to fend for himself. He grew his own crops and beat away coyotes. He never killed any of them, though. This was different. It didn’t feel right.

 

Keith was drenched. He extracted himself from beneath the smawg—if it wasn’t dead yet, it would bleed out quickly. Keith dripped. 

 

The crowd slowly faded back into Keith’s hearing. He heard them screaming some word, he didn’t know-  _ smawg-see, smawg-see, smawg-see.  _ Keith shivered and clutched his arms. 

 

The arena was empty. Keith waited with panicked breath for the soldier drones to take him away, but they didn’t come.

 

Slowly, almost as if in a dream, the doors opposite of Keith opened. The blood gradually congealed on Keith’s clothing. 

 

Another lamplight of eyes. Keith staggered. 

 

This one clawed him, and Keith’s arm swelled to the size of a watermelon. He thought. He didn’t remember how big a watermelon was. Keith’s small moment of panic caused the smawg to slam him across the arena and into the wall. 

 

Keith wheezed and gagged. There wasn’t anything in his stomach, but he heaved anyways. 

 

The smawg waited for Keith in the center of the arena. Keith staggered towards it, barely able to use his arm. He switched his sword to his other hand and swung it experimentally. 

 

The smawg growled deep. Keith could smell the poisonous breath, but the effects weren’t so bad this time.

 

Keith growled back, low and animalistic. Something red and visceral rose in his throat, making him want to vomit again. He wasn’t sure anything but disgust and revilement would fall out.

 

The smawg took a step forward, but before it could even draw a breath, Keith leaped forward and stuck his blade in its eye. The smawg screeched and shook its head back and forth. Keith could barely hold on, but he screeched back. 

 

Keith yanked his blade out and stumbled on his ankle. He made himself regain his balance and brought his blade to the ready. 

 

“Come at me,” Keith growled. It wasn’t picked up by anything. 

 

The smawg sank to its stomach and placed its paws over its eye. Keith softened the slightest bit— _ look, it’s only trying to heal itself.  _

 

The crowd booed.  _ They’ve come to see the Christians eaten by the lions. Give them a show. _

 

Keith stalked forward. His blade was sticky with mostly dried blood—Keith was reminded of the gel-like consistency nail polish had before it dried completely. 

 

From the way the smawg was lying, the top of its head came to Keith’s chest. Keith crouched by its side and resisted the urge to pet it like a dog. 

 

He scraped his blade on the arena sand. It barely made a difference, but it was something. The edge glittered through the blood—like anime blood, but real.

 

Keith pushed the smawg on its back. It didn’t protest. 

 

Carefully, he brought the blade to rest on the smawg’s throat. The smawg twitched, then went very, very still.

 

Keith took a deep breath, trying to calm his nerves. He was tempted to check his pulse at the base of his neck. His anger had seemed to dissipate the moment the smawg had surrendered.

 

_ We all take time to get over that,  _ Shiro’s voice said.  _ Patience yields focus.  _

 

Keith’s world narrowed to his breathing and the still smawg under his knife. Carefully, so as to not get any more blood on his clothes, Keith cut its throat.

 

It was different deliberately. Keith felt horrible.

 

He didn’t think of anything as blood squirted around his hand. It didn’t feel like anything he’d touched before- thicker, slimier. A fresh layer of blood coated his already bloody hand. 

 

Keith brought himself to his feet. He tore his gaze away from the dead smawg and looked around the arena, waiting for another one to pop out—nothing came but the robot sentries. Keith went with them willingly.

 

_ Patience yields focus,  _ he said to himself like a mantra.  _ Patience yields focus. Patience yields focus. Patience yields focus, patience yields focus, patience yields focus yields focus yields focus.  _

 

_ Laughter-silvered wings; up, up, the long, delirious, burning blue.  _ The sentries took him to be sprayed and showered and gave him new clothes. The gestures felt empty. 

 

He didn’t fight again, but watched others be cut down. They broadcasted these duels across the empire. Keith and his fellow prisoners watched the fights live on a small screen in their holding room. Keith divided his time between the screen and looking at everyone else, wondering who he’d see die on-screen next. 

 

They were led back to their cells in small increments. There weren’t a lot of people left, maybe ten. Keith was led back with an armed guard of five Galra soldiers. He didn’t know why—maybe because he was a high priority prisoner, maybe because he took down two smawgs in one fight while barely holding onto life. While barely holding onto sanity.

 

He was unceremoniously thrown back into his cell. He couldn’t feel much due to the pain in his stomach and the swelling in his arm. That all mostly blocked out the rest of the pain. 

 

Shiro didn’t say anything, just gently laid Keith on his bed. Keith closed his eyes and let himself sleep in the safety of his friend. 

 

* * *

 

Shiro was worried. Keith was sweating pretty hard, which meant a loss of fluids. And it wasn’t like they had the most water in the world. 

 

He didn’t know what to do. Keith was asleep, or unconscious, and Shiro’s hands hovered over his body. Maybe taking off his shirt?

 

Shiro blushed, but rolled Keith’s prison suit to his waist. Maybe sweating out whatever fever this was would work. 

 

At first, Shiro thought it was a small bruise. He ran his fingers over the purple dot on Keith’s abdominal muscles. 

 

It  _ moved.  _ Shiro gasped and quickly withdrew his fingers. 

 

Then he looked at it closer. Maybe it hadn’t moved. Maybe Shiro was jumpy from worrying all day. 

 

He gingerly reached for the bruise again. His fingers shook. 

 

He stopped a millimeter from Keith’s skin. He bit lip, suddenly uncertain. If it  _ was _ a bruise, and now Shiro didn’t know if it was or not, then Keith wouldn’t appreciate it if Shiro kept poking at it. 

 

Shiro worried his lip some more, then withdrew his hand. He clutched it to his chest and felt like a burden was lifted from his shoulders. 

 

The purple spot wriggled again. Shiro watched it warily, grateful he wasn’t crazy. Well, he might have been. 

 

He wished Keith was awake to tell a story, to lessen the tension. Shiro thought of one on his own, but it wasn’t interesting, and it was more personal—less of a plot, more of a happening. 

 

Shiro knelt and put his head on Keith’s bed, just taking him in. In any other situation.  _ Any  _ other situation. 

 

_ Universe,  _ Shiro thought.  _ You’ve given me much and taken away more. I think a debt is owed.  _ He closed his eyes. 

 

In his mind, Shiro constructed a small situation. He had both of his arms, and his only scar was the one on his knee from when he fell out of a tree in fifth grade. 

 

It was warm and sunny. Shiro thought of a Tumblr painting of a small domestic scene—salmon and yellow hues, many plants, wide windows. Quiet and peaceful, maybe in the country. 

 

Keith slept on a bed covered in pillows and quilts. Shiro knelt by him and pillowed his arms on the side, laying his head on them. In real life, his eyes slipped closed.

 

He took Keith in like a work of art. Keith was lit by the windows, a gentle sunbeam falling on his face. Shiro could see his hair being displaced by his breath, and the faint suggestion of freckles. It was almost spring. 

 

_ Hey,  _ Shiro whispered, a small smile on his face. 

 

Keith’s nose scrunched up, and he tightened his grip on a pillow. He grumbled wordlessly, and Shiro huffed in amusement. 

 

_ Wake up,  _ Shiro sing-songed.  _ I’ve made pancakes.  _

 

Keith considered, propping his head up on the pillow. He was a stomach sleeper. He glanced over at Shiro, something light dancing in his eyes.  _ I don’t know.  _

 

Shiro fake scowled.  _ Up, up, up,  _ he chanted lightly. He bounced sharply on the bed with each word, making Keith bounce and laugh. 

 

_ I don’t know,  _ Keith repeated.  _ I might get up for pancakes and something else.  _

 

_ What kind of something else,  _ Shiro lightly teased. He scooted closer to Keith and rose so he leaned fully on his elbows. 

 

_ I don’t know,  _ Keith said again.  _ But I think you do.  _

 

Grinning, Shiro placed a soft kiss to Keith’s face. It felt like butterflies flying across his cheeks, and he drew away before it could develop further, smiling like he meant it. 

 

Keith laughed once, short and sweet.  _ Alright, alright,  _ he groaned playfully.  _ I’ll get up for your pancakes— _

 

The daydream shattered. The image of Keith smiling faintly, sun slanting on his face, and the promise of pancakes froze.

 

A harsh clang sounded. For a second, Shiro panicked. His eyes snapped open and he quickly snapped his head around to look for something, anything. Threats, a way out, weapons—

 

Someone placed food in their cell and walked on. Shiro breathed. 

 

More po-phum. Shiro ate his own portion and waited for Keith to wake up. He didn’t. Shiro watched him sleep. It wasn’t as nice as his daydream, and nowhere near as safe, but they were together and that’s all that really mattered. 

 

Shiro ate his po-phum and imagined it was pancakes. Big, fluffy pancakes, with a crispy edge and the perfect amount of maple syrup. Warm, straight off the stove-top, with breakfast sausages on the side. 

 

The po-phum was cold. Shiro poked it with his spoon and hoped it wouldn’t make him sick. 

 

He sneaked another look at Keith. He was still asleep, and he’d probably sleep for much longer.

 

Shiro didn’t know what had happened to Keith. Whatever did, it must have been bad. His arm was swollen, and his fever was off the charts. Shiro was worried all of a sudden. 

 

Without Shiro noticing, the po-phum was gone. Shiro looked at his dish for a moment, then set his spoon down with a clink.

 

It was very quiet in the prison. People were dying. 

 

Keith turned over on his side and moaned softly. Shiro hurriedly stood up and hovered, trying to see how he could help. Keith radiated heat. 

 

Shiro didn’t know what to do. He’d never had any younger siblings to take care of. His mother gave him Tylenol or Nyquil or some other medicine whenever he was sick. They didn’t have that. They didn’t have anything. 

 

He’d read somewhere, somehow, maybe heard it—cuddling? Saying it that way didn’t make it seem like the intense situation is was. Cuddling belonged to warm almost-spring days, light freckles strewn across pillows. Any other situation.

 

Shiro would share his warmth with Keith. There. Not cuddling. In any other situation. 

 

Shiro climbed into Keith’s bed. The mattress squeaked, then settled. Almost as if holding a child, Shiro wrapped his arms around Keith and gingerly brought him to his body. It was so careful.

 

Keith was damp with sweat, and yet his shivering rattled Shiro’s bones. Shiro tried to bring Keith tighter to him, trying to make Keith as warm as possible to break the fever. They’d just have to ride it out together.

 

_ Echo?  _ Ophelia asked, inquisitive. Shiro sighed into Keith’s hair. They were that close—Shiro didn’t know if he himself had gotten closer, or if Keith had, or if they both searched for human contact. Maybe the last one. 

 

_ Yeah,  _ Shiro whispered.  _ Yes, echo, but not right now.  _

 

Shiro felt Ophelia’s confusion. He didn’t know anything about Anpoolan culture, but he guessed that they were very open. 

 

_ I’m sorry,  _ Shiro thought.  _ Later. Definitely.  _

 

_ Very well,  _ Ophelia said.  _ Good luck.  _

 

_ You too.  _

 

Shiro put his hand over the back of Keith’s neck. It was all very vulnerable and weak—not Keith, not usually. 

 

Shiro closed his eyes and held Keith tight. He’d be okay. They’d be okay. 

 

* * *

 

They were okay. Keith woke up in the middle of the night and whispered his smawg story to Shiro, interspaced with alien snores. Shiro shivered to rival Keith’s own and held him tighter. Maybe not right now, but they’d be okay. 

 

They didn’t keep track of the days. The bruise (it  _ had _ to be a bruise) on Keith’s stomach didn’t go away, but it didn’t spread, either. Shiro didn’t know what to call it—benign. 

 

It was either Keith or Shiro, one day after another. They all blurred together—the one, large free-for-all, which lasted longer each day, and the duels, which never seemed to last long at all. 

 

Shiro was lagging. He hurt all over, from his back to his feet to his soul. If he hadn’t been damned before, he was damned now. Something must have gone horribly wrong in his past life if the universe was treating him like this. 

 

“No way,” Keith said when Shiro voiced his concerns. “You’re fine. You didn’t do anything wrong. You’re Takashi Shirogane. We’ll get through this.”

 

“Tell me a story,” Shiro asked, and Keith did. Shiro didn’t pay much attention—more mythology. Almost like he didn’t know what he was doing, Shiro’s hand came to lightly run circles onto the spot where Keith’s bruise  _ wasn’t _ growing. 

 

Keith stopped talking for a moment. “Shiro,” he tsked. “You’re the one who asked for the story.”

 

Shiro hummed. “Sorry.”

 

It was nice. Keith exhaled through his nose in amusement. That was fine—it was hard to laugh in a place like this. 

 

“I just like listening to your voice,” Shiro said, and blushed. His hand stilled on Keith’s stomach, but he didn’t make a move to pull it away. Neither did Keith. 

 

Keith lay his head on Shiro's shoulder. “I like talking to you.”

 

Shiro smiled, glad Keith couldn’t see it. “We’re going to be okay?”

 

“Yeah,” Keith said. “And soar on laughter-silvered wings when this is all over.”

 

Shiro knew the poem Keith was talking about. “And chase the shouting wind along.”

 

“Fling our eager craft through footless halls of air.”

 

“Tread the high, untrespassed sanctity of space, put out our hands, and touch the face of God.”

 

“Yeah,” Keith said. He adjusted his head on Shiro’s chest.  _ “When  _ all this is over.”

 

Shiro couldn’t stop smiling. It hurt his cheeks. His past life mustn’t have been all bad, if he had Keith now.

 

* * *

 

It was the middle of the night. Shiro was asleep, and Keith should have been too. He couldn’t. Didn’t. There wasn’t much of a difference.

 

He couldn’t have killed all those people, but he did. He couldn’t have been a paladin of Voltron, but he was. Seven hundred, seventy four thousand ships destroyed, all those lives lost—Keith couldn’t have done that, either, but he did.

 

Almost like he didn’t know what he was doing, Keith rubbed his hand over the bruise on his stomach. He knew that bruises usually faded to yellow or green by this point. Maybe it was the Galra in him that made the bruise different. Maybe it was just the Galra in him. 

 

It constantly tingled at the edges. Keith traced it through his shirt. 

 

Shiro was mildly obsessed with it. He didn’t think Keith knew, but Shiro would monitor it when he thought Keith was asleep. Keith woke up the every time—he was a light sleeper—but Shiro never found out. Keith knew. He knew all sorts of things. 

 

It was quiet in the prison. People were dying. 

 

Seven thousand, seven hundred and forty lifetimes of fighting in the arena. Keith tapped his fingers on his mattress. 

 

He heard the footsteps, but he thought they were for someone else.  _ It’s late,  _ he wanted to tell them. 

 

They came closer. Keith sat up, and looked at Shiro. He was asleep, and a good thing he was. Keith didn’t want him to wake up. 

 

The footsteps stopped. Keith stood up—he was expecting them standing there outside his cell. 

 

He’d fight. He didn’t want to go. He didn’t want to participate in whatever secret duel or whatever they must have selected him for. They could wait. 

 

_ It’s not time yet,  _ Keith wanted to tell them.  _ I’m not ready. It’s too late.  _

 

He couldn’t say anything. He couldn’t even struggle- the soldiers had him bound and gagged and taken away before he knew he was awake. 

 

They took him to a room he hadn’t seen before. It was filled with containers of some black liquid and drawers. Keith didn’t want to know what was in the drawers. 

 

They bound Keith to a chair.  _ Really,  _ he wanted to tell them,  _ a chair?  _ He tried to speak against the cloth in his mouth.  _ This is a shitty place to hold a secret duel and there are too many people in here. _

 

The soldier rummaging through the drawers tsked. “Someone shut him up,” she muttered. A soldier behind him conked him on the head, and Keith’s vision blurred.

 

He shook his head violently, but only felt more light-headed. He felt the soldiers take his shirt off, and he struggled harder. They wouldn’t—

 

It took five soldiers to hold him still, and one more to make sure he didn’t jerk his exposed shoulder. Keith started panting in panic. 

 

The soldier turned around with a needle in her hand. Light glinted off the black liquid inside. 

 

Keith didn’t want to let them do—whatever it was this is. He didn’t exactly have a choice. 

 

The needle hurt a little as it went in. They hadn’t wiped down the area with numbing wipes or gel or whatever. 

 

It felt like branding. Took a bit longer. Keith couldn’t see what they put on his skin. It kind of hurt. He didn’t have any other experience to compare it with, but it didn’t hurt quite as much as the scar in his other shoulder from the Blade of Marmora trials. 

 

Finally, they finished. Keith was damp with sweat. The soldiers carelessly placed Keith’s shirt back over his shoulder. 

 

Keith was led back to his cell. He couldn’t think straight. They took his cuffs off, but Keith barely felt the air rush in to soothe where his skin had rubbed raw.

 

He sat on his bed facing Shiro, still asleep. Keith would have thought Shiro was a light sleeper, but apparently not.

 

Keith gingerly lay on his back, but that hurt, so he lay on his side. Then his stomach. More comfortable that way anyways. His face smushed against the mattress as he tried to take solace in his sleeping cellmate.

 

He didn’t fall back asleep. Whenever he felt his eyelids slip closed, he’d clutch his shoulder and take the small rush of pain as a substitute for coffee.

 

He’d read somewhere, or heard it somewhere, that making large circles with one’s arms delivered the same amount of energy as did a cup of coffee. Keith didn’t want to try it out, not with Shiro still asleep in the room. Maybe later, when the alarm sounded. When his shoulder didn’t hurt so much. 

 

And it did hurt. Keith didn’t know what it was—an injection against disease? A tracker, maybe? It seemed like it took a lot longer than a tracker injection would. Keith didn’t know.

 

It might have been a tattoo. Keith shrugged that thought off (not literally) and deemed it insensible. 

 

He lay for what must have been hours. The alarm sounded, and Shiro woke. Keith pretended like he had just woken up too, but there was no way he could hide the dark circles under his eyes. 

 

Shiro gave him a sideways glance. “Long night?”

 

Keith nodded. He sat on the edge of his bed and closed his eyes. 

 

Shiro did the same. “Nightmares?”

 

Keith latched on to that explanation. “Felt like it.”

 

He felt rather than saw Shiro's forehead crease. “I don’t understand.”

 

Keith squeezed his eyes tighter shut, then went to sit next to Shiro. He pulled down his shirt and presented his shoulder. 

 

“What the hell did they do to me,” he asked.

 

Shiro inhaled sharply. He didn’t say anything until Keith asked again— “Shiro, what the  _ hell  _ did they  _ do to me.” _

 

“It’s a tattoo,” he murmured. Keith groaned.  “It looks like a, a, I don’t know. A Galra word. A sword. Something. An animal? I’m sorry.” 

 

Keith pushed his shirt back over his shoulder. “‘S fine.”

 

Shiro buried his face in his hands. “God,” he muttered. “When did they do that?”

 

“Last night,” Keith said. He didn’t know why he felt so expressionless. Everything fell flat. 

 

“God,” Shiro said again. “I’m so sorry, Keith.”

 

It was Shiro’s turn to fight. Keith waited in their cell, lying on the floor, pressing his shoulder and searching for that small rush of pain. He told himself it was to keep himself awake. 

 

* * *

 

_ Hello, Ophelia,  _ Shiro said. He carefully didn’t look at them. 

 

_ Hello, Shiro.  _

 

With a small shock, Shiro realized it was the first time Ophelia called him that. He didn’t say anything about it. 

 

“You know what’s going to happen,” a new Galra soldier said. He waved them into straighter lines. “What _was_ going to happen. Your previous commander was proven to be corrupt, so her policies have been reviewed and have proven to be inane. Command has seen fit to assign me to this outpost. I have new policies. 

 

“If I call your number, step forward. Oh-one-two-two-five. Oh-one-two-six-nine. Oh-one-three-one-zero. Oh-one-three-four-six. Oh-one-three-eight-five.” The soldier droned on, calling about two thirds of the prisoners forward. 

 

“And we have a special guest with us today,” the commander said. “We all thought he was dead, didn’t we, Champion?”

 

Shiro flinched. Ophelia, in the commander’s line, sent him a concerned glance. 

 

“Yes,” the commander said, smiling faintly. “I do believe we will have quite the entertainment today.”

 

* * *

 

Shiro was separated from the rest of the prisoners and given a sturdy sword more suited to his size. He held it in his left hand and tried to activate his right. 

 

_ Go,  _ he told it. It remained stubbornly gray. 

 

He gave it a frustrated little shake.  _ Go,  _ he said again, more impatient. Nothing happened. 

 

Shiro bit back a groan and switched his sword to his dominant hand. Looks like they’d do this the hard way. 

 

One of the guards prodded him forward. Shiro faced a large set of doors that slowly swung open. He winced at the light silvering on his face. 

 

The roar of the crowd hit him like a wave. Shiro was already breathing hard, and this battle hadn’t even started. 

 

One of the guards pushed him out. Shiro raised his sword and tried to prepare himself for what was out there. Operative word ‘tried’.

 

The arena looked empty at first glance. There were two large pillars blocking some of his view, though, so Shiro couldn’t be sure. He considered prowling around to see if someone was hiding behind there, but that wouldn’t help anything. 

 

The crowd roared for action. They wanted something  _ now,  _ they hadn’t come here  _ for Champion to just stand around like he wasn’t the main attraction DO something already swear to Dakos why isn’t he moving? What a waste of GAC.  _

 

Something moved in the arena. Keith’s breath whispered on this back of his neck, about to say something, and Shiro took a deliberate step forward and made his way to the pillars. 

 

The alien burst around the pillar around the same time Shiro got there. They probably wanted to take Shiro by surprise—if it had been two years ago, that would have worked. As it was, Shiro neatly sidestepped their lunge and grabbed their wrist, pulling them to the ground. 

 

The alien rolled and and jumped back onto their feet. It looked like a huge, orange cat, and Shiro was almost reluctant to fight it. He was a cat person. And a dog person. He missed Earth animals.

 

It roared and leaped at Shiro again, almost like a lion.  _ Stop it with the cat analogies,  _ Shiro told himself. 

 

Shiro allowed himself to be knocked back onto the pillar. He found he fought better when backed into a corner. (The arena was circular, he noted absent-mindedly.)

 

The cat had a small knife, which they swung into Shiro’s face. Shiro blocked it with his metal arm and shoved the cat off of him. They landed a couple feet away and waited for Shiro to get his bearings.

 

He pushed himself off of the pillar and began to circle the cat, trying to get somewhere empty. The pillars took up the majority of the arena, but Shiro could try. 

 

The alien bristled and growled at Shiro, trying to incite him into fighting. They probably thought they could take Shiro in a fight. Probably could have, too, if it was two years ago. 

 

Shiro circled his wrist, trying to find a comfortable grip on his sword. The alien paced a couple steps closer, and they circled each other. 

 

With another roar, the alien leaped forward and made a stab at Shiro’s chest. Shiro easily blocked it and countered back, swinging his sword at the alien’s neck. The alien, moving with the reflexes of a cat, blocked.  _ Oh my god, _ Shiro thought at himself.  _ I thought we weren’t doing that. _

 

They seemed evenly matched. The cat blocked every attempt Shiro made to get a cut in, and Shiro did the same. The crowd started to boo. They wanted  _ blood.  _

 

The cat was distracted by the crowd. They wanted to live and put on a show. Shiro could understand. He wanted to live, too. Couldn’t have it both ways. 

 

Shiro took the cat’s distraction and sliced at his chest. He got a shallow cut in, enough that blood spattered the ground and Shiro himself. 

 

The cat coughed and staggered backwards.  _ He’s still new,  _ Shiro realized.  _ He’s not good at being injured.  _

 

That must have hurt a lot. Shiro felt incredibly guilty. Then he berated himself for feeling guilty—this was  _ life or death,  _ and Shiro wanted to  _ live.  _

 

Only problem was, the cat wanted to live, too. Couldn’t have it both ways. 

 

The crowd roared in anticipation.  _ Blood blood blood blood!  _ Four repetitions. Shiro shuddered at the implication. 

 

You know what? Enough dancing around. Shiro roared back at the crowd, never breaking eye contact with the cat, and ran forward. This needed to end five minutes ago. Champion never lets a match go beyond ten minutes. 

 

He let the primal part of his brain take over. It was so incredibly easy to sit back and watch his body driven by instincts— _ duck, go left, right up in their space and stab! Now! Do it! _

 

Shiro did it. 

 

The cat coughed around the sword, a growl dying in their throat. It gestured to Shiro to listen to them, and Shiro (crazily enough) leaned in closer. 

 

“You… look like him,” the cat whispered. Shiro waited. “You fight like a demon. I am honored to die at your hands. I have never…” The cat stopped, and Shiro thought they were done. The cat took in a rattling breath, and said, “Dakos guide you and I to His warm embrace. Let Him and His consorts watch over us and our actions, let Him never steer us wrong. Bless us, Dakos, and let us live in peace.”

 

Shiro breathed out. He didn’t deserve anything—none of this, this, prayer, this blessing, this—these funeral rites. 

 

He had nothing to say in return, and the cat died. Shiro missed the moment—you don’t know, not really, the moment an alien stranger dies. The light goes out of their eyes and you’re left with something that might have been a glimmer. Shiro didn’t know. 

 

The crowd erupted. Shiro stepped back and let the cat slump to the ground. 

 

He didn’t hurt anywhere. Upon closer inspection, Shiro didn’t think he got a single scratch on him. Jesus. Maybe he did deserve Champion. 

 

* * *

 

They didn’t let him out of the arena until he killed another two aliens, and finally, he had a break. Neither of the duels lasted long. Neither of the aliens put up much of a fight. 

 

His break lasted maybe ten minutes. He was starting to get a feel of how the day was going to go down. He shouldn’t have expected anything else, really, not with the way his past life must have gone. 

 

_ Champion,  _ someone said. At first Shiro thought it was himself, or Ophelia, or Keith, but it was the Galra soldiers telling him his break was up. 

 

The door slivered open again. Shiro tried to get used to the sound—almost like broken glass, or a drawn-out broken arm. He had a feeling he’d be hearing it a lot. 

 

He stepped out into the arena. His back hurt. And his sword was still a little dirty—someone tried to clean it but didn’t get very far. Shiro tried to scrape off the congealed blood on the arena floor, but that didn’t help at all. 

 

There was already someone in the arena. Shiro could sense them—it all came back to him, all these senses. He was a little rusty, but all this was deeply ingrained. 

 

The alien was hiding behind a pillar like all the aliens that came before. Shiro lightly stepped over, trying not to make a sound. He could feel the anticipation and energy rising from the crowd and lapping at his feet like ocean waves. A peace that induced anxiety. 

 

The alien was nervous. Shiro didn’t know how he knew, he just did. He turned the corner. 

 

His sword dipped, and he straightened. Ophelia looked back at him, clutching their spear, visibly frightened. 

 

He whispered their name. This was not happening. No, he wouldn’t fight. 

 

“No,” he yelled, “no. Absolutely not. No, we’re not going to fight.” He turned his back to Ophelia to address the rest of the audience. “I can’t—”

 

Shiro was knocked almost halfway across the arena. He collapsed on the floor and rose to his elbows, coughing. His back burned as he pushed himself back up. 

 

The crowd screamed. 

 

Ophelia was back where Shiro found them, their staff poised and ready to fight. Shiro stumbled slightly and bowed his back, trying to relieve the pain. An ugly bruise was already starting to form, Shiro could tell. 

 

That all wasn’t important. “Ophelia?” Shiro asked, trying to get a response. 

 

Ophelia stayed silent and crept slowly towards Shiro. They started to circle each other, Shiro falling back on his old survival habits. He couldn’t imagine what was happening to Ophelia- some mind control serum? No, that couldn’t be right. Maybe Ophelia was out for revenge for something, though they’d had plenty of opportunities to kill Shiro before this. They’d fought back-to-back, for God’s sake. He’d trusted them.

 

“Ophelia,” Shiro said, trying again. “C’mon, you know me. Please, I—” 

 

Ophelia lunged and managed to get a solid hit on Shiro’s chest. He stumbled, only keeping himself upright through sheer force of will. He coughed again. Something in his chest caught, and he had to stop, trying to unstick his breathing. 

 

“Please,” he managed to say through the coughing. He held his breath for ten seconds and got himself back under shaky control. “Come on. Ophelia, it’s  _ me.  _ You know me. You know echo.”

 

Ophelia’s mouth twitched, and they snorted like a bear. Shiro hadn’t known they could make actual sounds. Their antennae twitched the slightest bit, like they were thinking. Shiro’s breath caught in his throat.

 

“Echo,” he whispered again. He swallowed thickly, then began to speak. 

 

“Do you know the echo myth?

 

“The king of the gods was cheating on his wife,” Shiro began. “He told the cloud nymphs guarding his palace to keep his wife away from the mortal world. One nymph in particular. Her name was Echo.”

 

Ophelia slowed, and Shiro matched his movements to theirs. He locked eyes with them and continued his story. “Echo was known for being talkative. She intercepted the queen of the gods on her way to the mortal world to check on her husband, and they talked. About the most mundane things—who had rained, what colors they turned in the sunset last night.”

 

Ophelia ground to a halt and tilted their head at the word ‘sunset’. Shiro bulled on. 

 

“The king returned, satisfied. He went back the next day and the day after that, and his mistress got pregnant. Every day, the cloud nymph Echo intercepted the queen, and so the queen could only suspect her husband, and never do anything about it.”

 

Ophelia’s antennas waved in mild confusion. Shiro could tell that was a good sign. He tried to communicate the meaning of infidelity and jealousy to them. 

 

“But then the king’s mistress had his child, and it was impossible to disguise the godliness. The queen flew into a rage at the proof of her husband’s infidelity, and she cursed the nearest available face—Echo, the cloud nymph.

 

“From then on, Echo could only repeat what was spoken to her. She could never express an original thought ever again.” Shiro ended his story. The crowd hushed in anticipation, waiting for Ophelia to make the next move. 

 

They dropped their staff.  _ Why, Shiro,  _ they said, with a quiver and a sense of deep apology underlying it all.  _ That’s not a fair story at all.  _

 

Shiro laughed once in relief. He tried to blink away the pinpricks in the corners of his eyes.  _ You’re okay,  _ he thought.  _ You’re going to be okay.  _

 

Shiro only had eyes for Ophelia, and that was where he berated himself. The crowd was booing. Shiro didn’t see the doors at the far end of the arena open. 

 

Keith’s breath tickled the back of his neck.  _ Echo, echo, echo.  _ Shiro shivered and stepped gingerly towards Ophelia, who fell to their knees. Shiro could feel the sorrow emanating from them. 

 

_ Echo, _ Keith whispered.  _ Echo,  _ Ophelia said, sounding broken. 

 

The doors clanged open, and Shiro jumped. His gaze snapped to the bristle of spears and guns framed by the darkness, twenty feet away. Shiro clenched his fist and waited in anticipation. 

 

They approached. Ophelia didn’t stand up, despite Shiro urging them to— _ defend yourself, I know you’re a peaceful species but please there’s got to be a couple different ones at least please just save yourself.  _ Ophelia didn’t say a word. 

 

The Galra soldiers got closer, and several trained their guns on him, advancing. Shiro couldn’t help but retreat.  _ Stop it.  _

 

He heard Ophelia wail. God, it hurt even  _ him— _ his heart wrenched in his chest, and his stomach twisted, and his muscles locked up. He couldn’t breathe. 

 

Ophelia screamed for forever. The entire arena was stock still as Ophelia writhed in the Galra’s grasp, not able to break free. Shiro could only watch in horror. 

  
Finally, finally, they had to stop to breathe. Shiro gasped for breath and fell to his knees. He didn’t hear Ophelia scream again, so he looked up, only to see someone clamp a god damned  _ muzzle  _ on them. Shiro growled and leapt up, only to be bashed on the head with a gun. His eyes slammed shut and he didn’t feel his head hit the floor. 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've written about smawgs before, in my fic Depth Perception. It goes into detail about the animals and why they affected Keith like they did, but suffice to say, they have poison breath and their claws make Galra swell up like a broken ankle. 
> 
> The cat that Shiro fought is Aiber from the last chapter. When Keith thinks the audience is saying _smawg-see,_ they're saying "Smawg-Sie," in which I've twisted the German proper 'you' to mean a diminutive version of 'you have conquered the beast.'
> 
> A couple headcanons: Keith, who is from Texas, is Protestant and _perhaps_ Mormon. (Marmora sounds eerily similar to Mormon, right?) Shiro is Buddhist and believes in reincarnation. (I'm Buddhist too, so if you have any questions about that, don't hesitate to ask!)
> 
> Thank you for reading!


	4. John 4:18

They threw Shiro into their cell like he was a sack of garbage. Keith glared, _growled_ at them with everything he had, but the soldiers didn’t respond. Keith would’ve liked at least a snicker to tell him they weren’t all lifeless soldier beasts.

 

Of course they were all lifeless soldier beasts. Couldn’t expect anything else from a Galra brainless enough to decide to follow _Zarkon._ Keith wanted to scream. Eject something from his mouth, in his utter hatred.

 

He could’ve _stopped_ it. He could’ve brought an _end_ to the Galra empire, but he was rotting here in this cell for countless days and nights on end with no _end_ in sight.

 

Keith wanted to vomit his rage. He needed to fight another smawg. He needed to rip something apart with his teeth.

 

Shiro gritted his teeth. Keith stared at him in contempt, heat crowding his face into something small and seething. Shiro should be an example of leadership, not this quivering _mess_ on the floor. Keith pulled him up to his bunk and started pacing, just for something to do. Something to personally hate.

 

Shiro’s teeth clenched and he rocked around on his bed. Keith stood over him and waited for it to end.

 

Shiro screamed, low and beast-like. There were less grumbles than Keith would have expected from a prison this size. None, actually. The prison was dead quiet save for them.

 

Shiro’s eyes opened slowly, and he blinked, as if trying to get a cloud out of his eye. Keith crossed his arms.

 

“They’re dead,” Shiro croaked. “Ophelia. I—” he winced for a small moment— “I could feel it.”

 

Keith remained silent. He didn’t trust himself not to vomit his rage over Shiro if he opened his mouth.

 

“The alien next door.” Shiro wanted to explain. “We’ve been talking—”

 

“I know,” Keith said, snappishly. He didn’t vomit after all. Huh.

 

Shiro’s breath caught in his throat, and he looked up at Keith, betrayed. Whatever. He was fine. Keith went back to pacing.

 

“Keith,” Shiro said, “what did they do to you?”

 

Keith coughed as some kind of gas filled their tiny cell. _No, stop, what—_ “Nothing,” he said. “I don’t get what you mean.”

 

“You’re distant,” Shiro said. “And—are you mad at me?”

 

“I can’t imagine why you would say that,” Keith said, turning sharply on his heel and holding his arms tight at his side. His insides felt higher than they should be, leaving a vacuum where his stomach should be.

 

He felt rather than saw Shiro frown. It had a certain pull to it, the corners of his mouth increasing the pull of gravity. Fake gravity. Keith clenched his fists and relished the dig of his nails into his skin.

 

Shiro rose from his bed. Keith stopped and turned to Shiro— _left face._ High school JROTC skills. He opened his mouth in anger, about to chew Shiro out for standing up so soon after his head wound. That _couldn’t_ be good.

 

Shiro silenced him with a hand over his mouth. Keith recoiled in disgust, the sweatiness of Shiro’s palms overwhelming his nose.

 

“They did something to you,” Shiro said more to himself. “Keith, be honest with me here. _What did they do.”_

 

Keith was about to lie. He wanted to. Nothing, they didn’t do anything.

 

Something deeper than logic, or emotions— _in the kitchen. Intuition—_ reared its ugly head, and something inside Keith shifted. He was still mad. Not at Shiro. Just mad. He closed his eyes.

 

Shiro took away his hand, and Keith said, “I don’t know. Last thing I remember is they pumped some god damn stupid _gas_ in here and I was coughing. That’s it.”

 

“Huh,” Shiro said. “Are you going to be okay?”

 

Keith crossed his arms and looked away. There was a lump on the floor he could be mad at. He nodded at Shiro absent-mindedly.

 

His eyes slipped closed. Being mad for so long was tiring. He wasn’t sure if he was all steady.

 

He pushed at Shiro’s chest in the general direction of his bed. “Go to bed,” he commanded. “You need your sleep, okay? I know you got a bad hit on your head.”

 

Shiro didn’t move. “I’ll lay down if you do.”

 

 _Someone’s got to keep watch._ “Fine,” Keith grumbled. _From what?_

 

He headed towards his bed, but was stopped by Shiro’s hand on his shoulder. _What does the fucker want now._ He turned to glare at Shiro, who looked sheepish. It was really hard to be mad at a face like that.

 

“Sorry,” Shiro said. “I just thought it would be easier if we shared a bed. You know. Just in case.”

 

 _Just in case of what,_ Keith thought. He squashed his feeling of excitement and said, “Fine.”

 

Shiro smiled wide. He climbed into his bed with no problem, leaving Keith to stand, stranded. He didn’t know what to do. Did you just— _climb in,_ without a care in the world?

 

Shiro smiled up at him, then gently grabbed his wrist and guided Keith to lay on the bed next to him. Keith could only imagine the massive headache Shiro must be experiencing after the blow to his head. Keith was jealous of his ability to remain calm despite that. Patient, even.

 

 _Patience yields focus._ Figures.

 

Shiro’s breathing evened out next to Keith. Keith took some time to silently seethe. He didn’t know what he was angry at anymore. He carefully didn’t think about Voltron or Allura or Lance or Pidge or any of them.

 

Shiro didn’t smile in his sleep. Keith couldn’t blame him. He doubted he himself smiled in his sleep, either.

 

Shiro twisted, turning on his side. Keith held his breath and kept himself utterly still, waiting for Shiro to wake. He didn’t. Keith slowly breathed out. He felt calmer, though he knew the anger was right there, just out of reach. If Keith extended the slightest effort, he could touch it. It was hot and made his chest tight.

 

Shiro’s face tightened, and he reached out suddenly. Keith stared blankly at the hand an inch from his nose. He wondered what nightmares Shiro must be having.

 

Keith closed his eyes. _So much for keeping watch._ Being so mad for so long was exhausting, and he could feel the hollow spaces underneath his eyes begin to form.

 

He didn’t like being defenseless,  but then he figured, they’d all done terrible things to him already. One more thing wouldn’t hurt.

 

Sleep didn’t find him. Keith muttered through bible phrases, words he learned in Sunday school. Isaiah 57:7. _“For a brief moment I forsook you, But with great compassion I will gather you.”_ Lamentations 5:3. _We have become orphans without a father, Our mothers are like widows._

 

Keith squeezed his eyes harder shut. Romans 3:23. _For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God._ Jeremiah 17:9. _“The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; Who can understand it?”_

 

He tried to silence his mind. His thoughts crowded around his head, and he twisted in the bed, trying to regain his balance.

 

Someone’s arm snaked around his middle and held him tight. Keith bowed sharply over the arm and tugged at his hair. He was trying to let off steam, trying to open an airway to his overheated brain.

 

Slowly, he came back to himself. Shiro breathed softly into his hair, ruffling the tiny baby hairs that were growing in. Keith let himself be calmed.

 

Ephesians 4:26. _Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger._

 

_Patience yields focus._

 

Psalms 107:29-30. _He caused the storm to be still, so that the waves of the sea were hushed. Then they were glad because they were quiet, so He guided them to their desired haven._

 

Shiro. What did Keith do to deserve him? Shiro would’ve said something about his past life, his karma. Keith didn’t know.

 

Shiro’s arm didn’t allow any room for Keith to move. It was nice, almost peaceful if they weren’t in a Galra prison and about to die like everyone else Keith had met.

 

The prison was absolutely silent. No one snored, or even stirred. Maybe there weren’t enough prisoners left to make a sound. Maybe there weren’t _any_ prisoners left to make a sound.

 

Keith fidgeted, and Shiro’s grip tightened on him.

 

He closed his eyes and forced sleep. Proverbs 3:24. _If you lie down, you will not be afraid; when you lie down, your sleep will be sweet._

 

His dreams were red and angry—the Red Lion wasn’t there like she used to be. Maybe she had given up on him. Maybe he gave up on her.

 

Whichever one it was, it made Keith angry. He twisted in his sleep and didn’t feel Shiro hold him as tight as he possibly could.

 

* * *

 

Shiro woke to someone trying to claw his face off. On instinct, he threw his assailant to the floor. They hit the ground with a harsh _thud_ and a low moan through gritted teeth. Shiro shivered.

 

He got up and leaned over the edge of his bed to see Keith writhing on the floor. Keith’s eyes snapped open and he glared at Shiro in utter hate. Shiro thought he could see red.

 

“Keith, calm down,” he tried. _“Calm down.”_

 

Keith just growled and leapt at Shiro again. Shiro kept him at arm’s length and let him wear himself out.

 

It lasted for what seemed like forever. Shiro kept trying to say something, _calm down,_ but nothing he said seemed to make an impact on Keith.

 

Finally, finally, Keith slowed down. He slumped away from Shiro, tears welling in his eyes. _He’s snapped._ Shiro shook his head sharply.

 

He asked, uncertainly, “Keith?”

 

“Calm down? _Calm down?”_ Keith howled suddenly. “I can’t calm down! We’re dying, Shiro, we’re—we’re dying.”

 

Keith’s fists clenched at his sides. “We’re all dying! Look—these cells are _empty._ Ours will be too. Don’t tell me to _calm down._ We’re not—”

 

Shiro said, “Keith, please, I just

 

“We’re _dying!”_

 

Silence hung in the air between them.

 

They must have been the last ones left. Shiro was reminded of the utter silence of the ship they were tried on. Silence like that only came when they were the only breathing organisms at all.

 

They weren’t. There were Galra soldiers on the ship, but— _real_ things, not soulless monster aliens.

 

Speak of the devil. (That was one of Keith’s sayings.) Maybe ten soldiers—Shiro couldn’t count them—appeared. Shiro and Keith turned to face them, seething.

 

“Rise,” one said.

 

They rose.

 

“Come with me,” she said.

 

They went with her.

 

No one said a word as they were paraded down the hallways. It was eerily silent. Shiro could only hear his head pounding against his skull— _let me out, let me out, let me out._ Maybe it was the remnants of Ophelia, lingering in his brain.

 

 _Echo,_ Shiro thought, then shook his head.

 

They were led to a small carrier. It was empty, like everything else Shiro had seen on his walk. Maybe that didn’t mean anything.

 

 _Echo,_ Keith whispered without moving his lips. Or maybe it was Ophelia.

 

The trip went by in a blink. Ophelia stood on Shiro’s eyelids in the meanwhile.

 

They were roughly separated— _No, no, not him, I’ll go first. I want to go first._

 

 _Keith, come back. Please come back,_ Shiro said, or thought he said. Something cold pressed into his temple— _where were Solomon's temples? On either side of his head—_ and he was led away.

 

Something in his chest wrenched and gave way. Shiro had to bite his cheek, and then his tongue, to hold back tears. He knew staring at bright lights would dry up his tears or something, but this was a Galra ship, and there was nothing bright at all.

 

He tried to imagine what kind of ship it was—a 3-B, maybe, or even a 2-B. He couldn’t imagine it was a 1-B. There was only one of those in the Empire, and it belonged to Emperor Zarkon. Shiro had never stepped foot on it before.

 

There was a cell. Someone unlocked his wrists, which had been chained together at some point- maybe after the shuttle, or during the shuttle, or even before. He couldn’t remember. He didn’t even know they were there until after they were gone, like a Horcrux.

 

Shiro stayed there for what seemed like days, but was probably only hours. Someone gave him po-phum at one point. He couldn’t eat more than a couple bites.

 

Shiro couldn’t stop thinking about Keith. He didn’t want to think about whatever the Galra were doing to him. Shiro imagined all sorts of horrible tortures, starvation and humiliation and everything else. Removing a—no. No.

 

He slept at one point. Ophelia was there, the wind whipping their antennae so hard they couldn’t say a thing. They opened their mouth (what Shiro assumed was their mouth) but all that came out was Keith saying “Echo” in the desert.

 

Shiro didn’t imagine he slept long. Long enough, maybe. He berated himself for not thinking of a way to escape, to find Keith and get out of there. Then again, those hopes had been squashed a long time ago.

 

A squadron came up to Shiro’s cell. He rose to meet them. He wasn’t clamped in irons this time, only sandwiched in the middle of the squad and marched forward.

 

They led Shiro to a preparation room. He could hear someone announcing a fight in a language he didn’t know in the arena beyond and the roar of the crowd, craving death. He was handed a sword and told to stand in front of the massive doors. No time to stretch this time either.

 

They slowly slivered open. A beam of light fell on Shiro’s face, right into his eyes, causing him to wince. He hadn’t thought Galra ships could be so bright. Good for tears, then.

 

He walked out into the arena without any prompting, dragging his sword on the ground behind him. Didn’t seem like there was anyone else here—no pillars, no places to hide. Well, a small, steep hill in the corner, but that was it.

 

Shiro scanned the crowd. They were several feet above Shiro’s head. He couldn’t even reach them with his sword.

 

There was a space in the stands set aside for someone important. It rose above the rest of the stands and reminded Shiro of an emperor’s seat in a Roman arena he had been to. That scared him.

 

The set of doors opposite of Shiro’s own opened. He could hear the sounds of a scuffle cut through the roar of the crowd, a scream—no, a growl—something piercing Shiro’s ears and running through to his feet.

 

Someone did _not_ want to go into the arena. They didn’t sound human, didn’t act human. Shiro stood frozen in something like fear as they were pushed and pulled into the arena, several dog catcher sticks wrapped around their neck. They kicked up dust as they struggled against soldiers five feet away.

 

The squadron halted about ten feet from the door, and Shiro could hear them say some kind of a countdown before dropping the dog catcher sticks and bolting. The prisoner ran after them, and got the skin off of one’s back, before the heavy doors slammed shut in their face. They scream-growled again, clawing at the door with blunted nails. The crowd screamed in return.

 

There was the sound of an instrument. Shiro couldn’t tell what- almost like a piano, but with wind. Someone important was coming. The crowd quieted, so much so that the only sound Shiro could hear was the other prisoner’s snarling and clawing.

 

Resplendent purple robes and always, always wearing armor. He must always be afraid of someone stabbing him in the back.

 

Shiro watched as Emperor Zarkon raised his hand. Haggar stood behind him, so far away Shiro couldn’t watch her face. She was silent and did not bow as the rest of the arena sank deeply to their knees.

 

Everything he did was grand. As he sat down, his robes were carefully arranged so he did not trip or sit on them. They fell down to hang over the side of the platform he sat on. Haggar silently came to stand behind him, as his right hand druid.

 

He did not speak. Someone said something in announcement in a language Shiro didn’t know. The crowd cheered, and the air in the arena changed. It was charged with electricity. Shiro felt it tingle on his tongue.

 

The person clawing at the door slowly turned around. They stood like a human and let their hands drop to their side, a small drop of blood falling to the floor. Shiro watched it dry up in the sand. _ah-RÈN-ah._

 

Purple crept up around his collar and sleeves. His eyes didn’t glow, which Shiro was grateful for. He didn’t know if he could stand a Keith whose eyes glowed.

 

Because of course it was Keith. Keith who snarled and screamed and didn’t sound like a human. Bells rang in Shiro’s head.

 

Keith stared at him with his eyes that didn’t glow. Shiro swallowed dryly and adjusted his grip on his sword.

 

 _No._ He wouldn’t fight him. “No.”

 

Keith snarled. He didn’t have a weapon, Shiro noticed. Maybe they intended him to use his bare hands. Maybe they expected Shiro to win in the first five minutes.

 

Faster than Shiro could think, Keith lept. Shiro should have seen how he had tensed. God, he was so stupid.

 

Keith stuck out his hands like he expected to have full Wolverine claws. His nails were blunt and bleeding, likely from when he was clawing at the door. Maybe from before. Shiro stumbled back.

 

He swung his sword up on instinct. Shiro didn’t _want_ Keith to die. He didn’t want to die, either. He didn’t know what to do. This scenario had never come up in basic training. All he learned from that was how to treat a snake bite.

 

Keith landed lightly. Shiro cursed whatever physics he was using. He sidestepped Keith and tried to run for the hill. Maybe if he dragged this out, they’d call the match.

 

Keith ran after him. He used to be a sprinter, Shiro knew—the Garrison only accepted students with athletic backgrounds. Shiro couldn’t outrun him for long. He’d only done high school wrestling.

 

Keith didn’t say a word. Shiro didn’t even think he was breathing hard. Whatever the Galra did to him—Shiro had to find a way to reverse it.

 

His breath stuck on his ribs. He could wheeze, “Keith,” and that was about it. Keith did not stop.

 

Shiro swung his sword up again, trying to catch Keith’s arm on the dull side. He should have known it was double sided. A cut opened in Keith’s arm. He pressed on like he had no clue.

 

Shiro shoved him off. He stumbled back and his heel hit the rise of the hill. He turned to scramble up it, kicking at Keith whenever he came too close.

 

They stayed like that for a while. Keith would try to climb after Shiro on his little hill, while Shiro fended him off with his sword and his feet. He had to hand it to him, Keith just would not give up. He snarled and growled and clawed at Shiro’s feet.

 

The crowd did not like it. Shiro could feel the tingle on his tongue fade in and out with the mood of the crowd.

 

He knew it was only a matter of time before the Galra called the match. Shiro stared up at Emperor Zarkon and let a small, victorious smile cross his face as he fended off Keith with a strong kick.

 

Zarkon motioned to a soldier and whispered in their ear. The soldier nodded and left the podium.

 

Shiro heard a rumble. He assumed it was from the crowd, stomping their feet.

 

The doors that Keith had come through opened, and Shiro thought, _this is it. They’re calling the match and taking us back._

 

Four—no, six glowing yellow spots revealed themselves. They came into the light of the arena, and Shiro felt his heart sink to his stomach.

 

Beneath him, Keith stilled. The purple creeping up his neck spread to his chin. He opened his mouth, but all that came out was nonsense. _Smawg-see. Smawg-see._

 

Three beasts entered the arena. They had smooth, round, and flat faces, with mouths that stretched around the widest point. They crawled on all fours, and their breath _stank._ Shiro could smell it from the opposite side of the arena.

 

Keith gagged, then groaned. Shiro carefully pulled his feet up. The rumbling grew louder, as did the tingle in Shiro’s mouth. Little arcs of energy reached from his tongue to the roof of his mouth. It tickled.

 

“Oh, God,” Keith muttered. “For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.”

 

Shiro blinked. “Keith?”

 

Keith turned to look at Shiro, a haunted look in his eyes. “I’m sorry.” Purple retreated down his neck, then bounded back up, a silent struggle.

 

He bounded up from the hill and grabbed Shiro’s sword, rushing the beasts. Shiro followed in a split second, but he couldn’t stop Keith.

 

Keith ducked a swiping claw from the beast closest to them and dived under the beast's stomach, plunging Shiro’s sword into its neck. The beast screamed, low and agonized. Keith twisted the sword around and, with a quick movement, drew it out of the beast's body. He ran out of the way as the beast staggered, then fell.

 

Shiro grabbed Keith’s shoulder. He didn’t know what he was trying to do—stop him, maybe. All this senseless—slaughter.

 

That was a mistake. One of the beasts bellowed and hit Keith’s back, knocking him and Shiro back. The sword skittered several feet away, and Shiro could only watch it go.

 

“They’re called smawgs,” Keith whispered in Shiro’s ear. He lay on top of Shiro. Any other situation. Shiro was too scared to think. He could barely breathe.

 

Keith’s face tightened in pain, and he gingerly rose from Shiro to stand on his own. He wobbled and couldn’t find his footing until Shiro placed a guiding hand on his hip and slung his arm over his shoulder.

 

They couldn’t fight like this. They couldn’t _live_ like this.

 

The rumbling grew louder, and louder, and the crowd’s noise hitched for a moment. The smawgs halted, and one whimpered low in its throat.

 

Something in the distance crashed. Zarkon stood up, and Haggar took a small step back.

 

The loudest sound Shiro had ever heard erupted right above his head. He dived out of the way, pushing Keith with him. Some ceiling rubble landed where they were and crushed a smawg. Shiro winced.

 

Something huge and yellow was in the hole it had caused, causing much screaming and running. Zarkon was barking orders Shiro couldn’t hear over the pandemonium.

 

Keith wheezed behind him. Shiro could hear the chocked emotion behind it.

 

Right before his eyes was a Voltron Lion. In the heart of Zarkon’s empire, they’d come—Shiro could hardly believe it. He desperately wanted to.

 

Hunk climbed out of his lion’s mouth, holding his huge gun in one hand. It was a warning for the soldiers amassing to stay away. They did.

 

Hunk stood in front of Shiro and Keith and said, “I am so sorry.”

 

That was all he needed to say for Shiro to break down, a multitude of hot, burning tears rolling down his face, cutting tracks through the dust and sand. He didn’t hear Keith say a word, and turned to see his shocked expression, barely understanding what was in front of him.

 

Hunk placed a hand on Shiro’s shoulder and brought him into a hug. Shiro buried his head in Hunk’s warm, solid shoulder, and let the tears come. He was tired. He was done.

 

It was finished.

 

* * *

 

Ecclesiastes 12:7. _And the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it._

 

Romans 8:38-39. _For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us—_

 

Shiro’s pod hissed open. Keith stood up straight and waited for Shiro’s eyes to open, for him to be okay. A piano plinked in the very back of his mind.

 

Shiro’s eyes were a very intense shade of gray. Keith loved them. The eyes of the King of Heaven himself, the sky and the stormy sea.

 

No one else was with them. Keith had asked them to wait outside, in case Shiro was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of people. Keith himself had been shocked with the love and affection the other paladins showered him with. He hadn’t handled it very well.

 

Shiro cracked a grin to match Keith’s own. “You’re okay.”

 

Keith stepped closer and supported Shiro. He knew when Shiro needed it—it was in the way Shiro held his shoulders. “We’re both okay.”

 

Shiro’s eyes crinkled, and he pulled Keith into a long hug. Keith slung his arms around Shiro’s hips and pressed his face into Shiro’s shoulder. He smelled like the pod, medicine and something bitter and cold.

 

Shiro put his hand on Keith’s shoulder and reluctantly drew apart after a solid minute. He looked at Keith’s face, concern etched into the lines of his face. The hand on Keith’s shoulder subtly moved to Keith’s face.

 

Neither said a word. Keith’s mind was blissfully silent but for John 4:18. _There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love._ Greek gods danced and laughed in the background.

 

Keith closed his eyes for a slight movement. He felt a small displacement of air, and yet convinced himself he was safe. His hand subconsciously rose up to hold Shiro’s own, still cupping his face.

 

Shiro’s lips tentatively brushed against Keith’s own. Keith smiled softly and leaned forward, kissing Shiro on his own terms. He felt Shiro smile as well, a bright and wide smile that made Keith laugh.

 

The kiss didn’t last very long. It was peaceful and private, like an almost-spring day and rosy light spilling over a bed stacked high with pillows. Keith sighed softly and smiled at Shiro.

 

The both laughed softly. “We’re okay,” Shiro said, “we’re okay.”

 

Keith squeezed Shiro’s middle quickly. “I am never letting you go,” he murmured. “Beloved, let us love each other, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.” John 4:7.

 

Shiro laughed softly and pressed a kiss to the top of Keith’s head. “We’re not getting married in a church. You know that, right?”

 

Keith laughed and pulled away from Shiro. “We have plenty of time to argue about that later. Let’s just have each other for now.”

 

“Let’s have each other,” Shiro agreed. “Safe, right?”

 

“Safe, of course. There is no fear in love.”

 

 

 

END

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I told y'all this would have a happy ending
> 
> THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU TO GABBY @keith-and-shiro-were-dating FOR MAKING THE ART FOR THIS FIC!!! GO LOVE ON IT HERE: https://keith-and-shiro-were-dating.tumblr.com/post/164259528461/this-is-my-contribution-to-the-sheith-big-bang-i#notes  
> I can't say enough about it!!!
> 
> I wrote sixty ENTIRE pages of angst, did not cry one single tear, then got to the last page and a half of fluff and entirely lost it.

**Author's Note:**

> https://sheithbigbang.tumblr.com/ 
> 
> Thank you all so so much for reading! Comments and kudos are always appreciated! If you spot something you think should be tagged, please let me know! 
> 
> My writing tumblr is @reaadmydumbfanfiction, if you want to yell at me about Sheith and Voltron!


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